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New AH Supply bulbs and fixtures
We ordered bulbs and fixtures from AH Supply last Tuesday and received them
Friday afternoon. Very impressive service.
I installed the new setup in the tank with the old Sears shoplights. The
entire disassembly and reassembly job took about three hours. The AH Supply
kit was complete and went together very easily. Very impressive kit -
nothing for the electrically challenged to be worried about.
I made some lux measurements of the old hood before we took it apart.
Nothing very sophisticated; the hood was on some boxes and I put my
luxmeter under it at various locations. The measuring point was 17" below
the bulbs or what would be about 13" below the water surface. Some
measurements were hard to make due to the boxes. The following lux values
were noted:
Old bulbs (values in Lux); Sears shoplights, white reflector
Age of bulbs unknown (around 1 year); all 40w NO bulbs
Advance tar ballasts
Coralife ColorMax
PennPlax Ultra Tri-Lux
PennPlax Ultra Tri-Lux
Triton
0" 12" 24" 36" 48" 60"
20" 1320 2980 4050 3880 2640 ????
15" 2320 3920 5330 5230 3720 1540
10" 2320 4250 5740 5630 4080 2140
5" 2210 4000 5280 5320 3750 2070
0" 1220 2880 3960 3930 2820 1200
The following values were for the new kits. The bulbs were centered in the
hood side-to-side (5" gap from the hood to the end of each reflector and 5"
between the refelctors in the middle).
New bullbs; AH Supply 55w kits, silvered reflector
Brand new bulbs; all 55w CF bulbs
Electronic ballast
Sylvania 6700K + 6700K
Philips 5300K + 5300K
0" 12" 24" 36" 48" 60"
20" ???? 5540 6660 5810 5120 3050
15" ???? 8420 8800 8160 7400 6020
10" ???? 9555 10430 9280 8440 5020
5" 3670 8520 9620 7450 6230 3280
0" 1700 5280 6630 5930 4950 1800
I was puzzled by the apparent 20% difference from left to right. I'll make
more measurements after the bulbs have burned in more to get a better
comparison with the old origianl bulbs.
Overall, the tank is much brighter (80% was a very good estimate) and the
color balance looks good to the eye. The 5300 bulbs in the front help bring
out the fish and plant colors.
Very impressive product.
George
George Booth in Ft. Collins, Colorado (booth at frii_com)
"The web site for Aquatic Gardeners by Aquatic Gardeners"
http://www.frii.com/~booth/AquaticConcepts/