Vitalights

• To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
• Subject: Vitalights
• From: George Booth <booth at hpmtlgb1_lvld.hp.com>
• Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 10:38:56 -0600
• In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 11 Oct 1995 03:39:02 EDT." <199510110739.DAA20462 at looney_actwin.com>

> From: Christina via gomberg at wcf_com
> 
> What the paper said: Vita-lights loose their full-spectrum capacity
> after 30 days.  Some fancy german brand of full-spectrum lighting that
> is more expensive than vitalights lasts 60 to 90 days.  When this vet
> used vitalights and changed them every 30 days his lizards grew twice
> as fast as those lizards raised under vitalights that were not
> changed.

> Any comments from the light-heads?   George?

"Light head"?  That's a new one :-)

My interpretation would go one of two ways:

1) Snake-oil salesman

2) FL lights may have a very high initial lumen dropoff and then go
into a gradual lumen decline for the rest of their life. I know that
MH bulbs exhibit this to a rather amazing degree.  In the case of the
lizard, the number of new bulbs used provided just enough light
intensity or energy to satisfy the lizard's needs.  The light
intensity dropped below a magic threshold as the bulbs aged.  I would
suspect that the "loss of spectrum" is B.S.  I would also bet if he
added one or two more bulbs, the lizards would be perfectly happy for
a much longer period of time.

Probably the "fancy German" bulbs had higher lumens to start with 
and didn't drop below the magic threshold as quickly. 

Just like I've been saying all along with our aquarium plants and how
often we should change our bulbs.  

& (The Aquarist Formerly Known as George)

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