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[APD] RE: Actinics and other things to darken (or lighten) your life




I've always wonderd whether HPS and actinic would be a good combo. Small
(70W) HPS lights here are dist cheap as security lights and put out
about a lot of lumens, but primarily in the red.

If you mixed an HPS with an actinic, you'd leave a big hole in the spectrum. HPS lights are *very* red shifted, actinics are attempting to be line emitters (one wavelength) in the blue region. While this might not (and probably wouldn't be) a problem for the plants, the effect would probably be a strange looking tank -- especially for any fancy coloring on the fish.


Also, since HPS lights are very efficient, you'd need a *lot* of actinics to balance out the red/yellow of even one 70 watt HPS lamp.

Anybody else remember back in about 87 or so some guy on usenet
was gonna try a mercury vapour lamp and EVRYBODY told him it
wouldn't work, no red, wrong specrtum etc?

It worked amazingly well for him.

MH's aren't bad bulbs, and they have been used in agriculture before. They're biggest problem is that they aren't very efficient. MH lights are far more efficient and produce a better (broader) spectrum, even the 4000K ones.


BTW, my understanding of the actinic's use in marine setups is that they simulate the light spectrum at some 20-30 foot water depth where the corals are best adapted to live. Most of the plants are used to shallower waters where there is a broader light spectrum due to less water filtering the light. That's more of Tom's field though :-)

-Bill



*****************************
Waveform Technology
UNIX Systems Administrator

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