Re: PCF light spread

[Bill Wichers <billw at waveform_net>]

>BTW, does everyone want all of their tank to be lit up
>exactly the same?  What's wrong with some places darker
>than others?  Isn't aquascaping an art using plants *and*
>light?  I ask this while admitting that I'm not much of an
>artist.
>
>Scott H.

In my original reply to this post, I was making the assumption that in a 27 
gallon tank you probably won't have enough room to use shadows effectively 
to enhance the aquascaping and "art" aspect of the tank. In a bigger tank, 
maybe starting around 75g or so, I think some shadowy areas would probably 
look neat. In smaller tanks I think even lighting is a better goal to allow 
more space with full lighting for the plants. Any shadowy areas in smaller 
tanks should be left for the plants to determine by where they decide to 
grow their leaves.

Shadow areas will also look strange if they are perfect geometric shapes 
like what you'd get from a reflector that is too directional. 
Natural-looking shadow areas would need to be more randomized, cloud-like 
shapes. And being random is much more difficult than one would think :-)

         -Bill
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Waveform Technology
UNIX Systems Administrator