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Re: cheaper lighting? and green light (again)
Jim Wilson <freaks at aracnet_com> asks the eternal question:
> Is ther a less expensive alternative to using florecent aquarium light?
Why yes Jim!! If you have a nice sunny window or live in a climate where
its practical to locate an aquarium out of doors, you can make use of a
free energy source for light: SUNLIGHT!! For a low tech tank you only
need a few hours of daylight a day. If you have a good Southern
exposure, you can probably grow high light plants too.
But as an alternative to the LFS lights which run $20 and up, go to
Walmart or Canadian Tire and use a mixture of Grow'n'Show and cheap cool
white bulbs. They also carry Aquarium and plant bulbs at about a dollar
more. Perfectly good bulbs. Plant bulbs tend to be a little pinkish but
with an ordinary cool white or any other regular bulb, they look just
fine to us human beans. The plants don't care much and the grow bulbs
maximize the energy available to the plants.
I wish somebody with a PAR meter would measure some of those high lumen
bulbs and tell us if they are really all that good for plants.
Also, is the photosynthetic response generally identical for the higher
plant forms? Is there a wide range of responses? Are there certain
plants which do possess unique ability to utilize certain spectra better
than the norm?
Steve