A. natans ans cheap HID lamps

["Richard J. Sexton" <richard at aquaria_net>]

>>>Man, those newsgroups were a bad idea. Who invented them anyway?<<
>
>I thought you did Richard! It's all your fault!

I was hoping people had forgotten by now. Couldn't I blame Oleg?

>>>A is the Mriophyllum species sold as "Parrots feather". B is a hybrid
>Aponogeton bulb; common in the aquarium trade.<<
>
>I am pretty sure it is natans, not a hybrid. It is pretty common in the
>states, but Kasselmann describes it as "rare", I guess it hasn't made its
>way to Europe.  " This delicate and rare Aponogeton hardly forms any
>submersed leaves but predominantly floating leaves instead, rendering it
>hardly suitable for aquarists."  I guess she presumes most of us dont want a
>floating leaf plant...  It grows like a weed however in the aquarium. I had
>a pack of dry 2 year old natans bulbs that I opened up the other day put in
>an aquarium. In a few days all the bulbs developed 4" growth.
>
>A natans is native to Sri Lanka and India. I understand it easily hybridizes
>with ulvaceus, (which is from Madagascar) where it retains the ulvaceus
>submersed growth leaves, as well as the floating natans leaves. These are
>also quite common. Kasselmann's pic of natans looks identical to the pic of
>the person inquiring.

Thwe way I understood it was natans hybridizes with almost anything and that
many Aponogetons in the trade are these hybrids. No idea how you'd reallt
tell though.

>Richard J. Sexton wrote:
>>There's no such thing as a cheap metal halide ballast. Mercury and HPS
>>can be had cheap as outdoor safelty lighting.
>
>There *is* such a thing as a cheap MH ballast, but you have to buy them at 
>electrical supply places and not aquarium supply places. The primary market 
>for MH is not aquarium lighting, but rather is *interior lighting* of 
>*large* areas (warehouses and the like). You'll see MH lighting used in 
>places like Home Depot and Costco to light their large stores. MH is also 
>growing in popularity for security lighting since many people can see 
>better in the more balanced light spectrum it provides. MH ballasts bought 
>wholesale are priced similarly to HPS ballasts, which makes sense 
>considering that they are very similar in construction.
>
>MH light fixtures can be had cheap but are typically called high bays or 
>low bays, which are commercial lighting fixtures and the "hi" and "low" 
>parts refer to the height the lights are to be mounted at (they are focused 
>differently based on their intended mounting height). The fixtures are 
>rather large though, so if an aquarium fixture is desired it would be best 
>to use the high bay for parts and use a different reflector. You can think 
>of a high bay (or low bay) as a very large pendant-type fixture.

Well ok, you can get just the ballast for not too expensive but you still
have the rest todeal withL bas, wiring and the reflector. Maybe you know
where to get these cheap but I've never seen a source.



--

 /"\                         / http://lists.aquaria.net
 \ /  ASCII RIBBON CAMPAIGN / Killies, Crypts, Aponogetons
  X   AGAINST HTML MAIL    / http://killifish.vrx.net
 / \  AND POSTINGS        / http://www.vrx.net