[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: Bulbs
>
> I just purchased two new 40Watt bulbs for my 55 gallon tank.
> One is a GE Sunlight Full Spectrum bulb (Chroma 50 marked on the bulb)
> and one is a Sylvania Wide Spectrum Grolux bulb.
> Does anyone have any info on these two?
> I hope they work for plants
> Thomas Vickers
>
The original Grolux bulbs were made made to produce light that matched the
spectrum that plants need for photosynthesis. The Wide Spectrum Grolux
has a more smoothed-out spectrum that is a little better for general
lighting purposes. Either way, Grolux bulbs are great for growing plants,
but not very good for viewing plants. Their light looks dim and pinkish
to me. But then, I'm not a plant.
Chroma 50 bulbs are supposed to produce a fairly flat spectrum across most
of the visible range, but I don't have a copy of their spectrum, so I
don't really know if that's true. They render colors well, and I find
their light to be pretty much indistinguishable from standard Vitalites,
which are a lot more expensive (on the other hand, Vitalites produce light
outside the visible spectrum, and that is important to some critters, and
maybe to some plant functions). The one Chroma 50 I'm running seemed to
suffer a big drop in light output soon after I started using it.
The combination of Grolux with the Chroma 50 should be good for growing
plants, and reasonably good for viewing plants. My preference would be to
combine a Grolux tube with another tube with a little higher color
temperature and brighter light than offered by the Chroma 50.
Roger Miller
In Albuquerque, where the weekend brought us more than two months worth of
rain in just 18 hours. Bad flooding? No - the total was just over an
inch of rain.