[APD] Re: Amano's AGA demo -- the lesson of lesser lighting

["Ann Viverette" <annv777 at houston_rr.com>]

> Message: 8
> Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 02:33:35 -0800 (PST)
> From: "S. Hieber" <shieber at yahoo_com>
> Subject: Re: [APD] Amano's AGA demo
> To: Gomer <thatsmrgomertoyou at gmail_com>, aquatic plants digest
> <aquatic-plants at actwin_com>
>
> Somebody keep an ear open for Amano talking about running
> highlighting (MHs) for about 3 hours per day and the lesser
> amount of light from the PCs for a full daylength.
>
> Interesting approach that I haven't heard of many folks
> using, but sounds like a good plan, at least for slower
> growing plants.
>
> Scott H.

I know that our own dear Eric once wrote a strategy for calculating the 
lighting times that would be needed for various sorts of tanks; that is 
slow, moderate, and fast growth tanks. It calculates a watt-hrs required 
which I used  to calculate the high vs. low light periods in my 59 gallon 
tank. My tank has a 4x55 solar hood with dual switches and I was pretty sure 
that running it at 3.6wpg all day long would be too much work.

I don't have a link to Eric's original post and when I recently tried to 
locate it I failed, but my notes for the calculations I did for my tank 
(going from 1.8 to 3.6 wpg mid-day) show that the volume of the tank in 
cubic inches was multiplied by a factor of 0.18 for moderate bright (or 0.27 
for bright) to give a watt-hrs needed. This was distributed over an 11 or 12 
hour period with the excess doubled up at mid-day. In my tank, this resulted 
in 2x55 watts running from 8AM to 7PM, with the additional 2x55 watts on 
from 10AM to 1PM. I have no idea what the factors represent, but this 
strategy seems to work OK.

I do note that If I keep the ferts going correctly, dosing several times 
during the week instead of just once a week, the tank will bubble all during 
the photoperiod, not just at midday. Perhaps the 1.8wpg is still pretty high 
since the lights are flat against the glass top. The tanks Amano uses seem 
to all have the lights placed far away and no one seems to figure that loss 
due to distance into the wpg used on a tank (intensity ought to decline as 
distance squared, no?)

Ann V 


_______________________________________________
Aquatic-Plants mailing list
Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
http://www.actwin.com/mailman/listinfo/aquatic-plants