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Re: Light intensity and water depth
>
>------------------------------
>
>From: George Booth <booth at hpmtlgb1_lvld.hp.com>
>Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 08:11:36 -0700
>Subject: Re: Light intensity and water depth
>
>From: Jayme Donnelly <Jayme_Donnelly%BOND__NOTES at notes_worldcom.com>
>
>> One other question. If depth is not important, then why are salt
>> water/reef aquariasts concerned with depth and what type of lighting
>> they use to "insure sufficient lighting reaches the bottom"??
>
>I, for one, have not yet been convinced that depth is not important.
>Perhaps Wright could reenter the discussion, but my impression was
>that the "AquaMyth #1" was only debunked in the case of a plain tank
>where light was free to reflect off the sides.
>
>A heavily planted tank usually has plants covering 3 of the 4 sides
>and the light does indeed drop off dramatically from water surface to
>substrate. Many of the shorter plants are shaded by the taller
>plants. Stem plants especially tend to grow in an inverted pyramid
>shape and cast a lot of shade as they get taller.
>
>A taller tank DOES need proportionally higher light at the surface if
>low foreground plants are too receive enough light. IMHO, the
>AquaMyth is NOT a myth, at least for a typical planted aquarium.
>
OK George, consider me re-entered.
My original post was to get people to pay attention to what *is*
important, and quit assuming there was a) significant water absorption
and b) a spreading loss like in air (1/R^2 loss). I agree completely
with the view you express here, but defy you to express it in any
useful "Watts/unit depth" rule of thumb. It's highly dependent on the
individual tank, and 95% of those tanks out there are *not* heavily
planted. Hell, most of them don't suffer the thick cover of duckweed,
salvinia, and water sprite that makes my tanks look downright gloomy,
half the time. :^) As you say, yourself, it's not the depth but the
planting density that absorbs the light. My biggest losses are often
from just above the surface to just below the duckweed -- not really a
tank-depth-dependent phenomenon at all.
By the way, Charley, I believe the salt water absorption is also mostly
insignificant unless the reef uses energy out at 360nm or less. (I know
from nothing about reefs. I quit killing them in 1957). The density, et
al, arguments certainly are significant at the ocean depths, but not in
our shallow home aquaria. Pale reefs bounce light around inside the
tank a lot (a small plus) and reflect a lot of light out of the tank (a
big minus), so the amount of light should be determined by how much
wattage at what wavelength is important to the reef surface. Most of
the losses getting it there occur out in the air (spreading loss), at
the reflector, at the water surface (reflection, particularly at high
incidence angles) and in the wall scum. Water depth is way less
important than those until it gets so cloudy or tinted you have trouble
seeing the tank's contents clearly. Otherwise, you only lose about half
the visible light for every 20' or so of depth from normal salt-water
absorption. Thank goodness, tho, for we would otherwise miss all those
wonderful Natl. Geographic/Nature/Nova reef flicks! Shots of 40' whales
would be quite impossible.
--
Wright Huntley (408) 248-5905 Santa Clara, CA USA huntley at ix_netcom.com