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Re: lighting



Tom wrote:

> Dupla can insist all they wish:-) Doesn't mean they are correct. That
was
> what? 1985? Things change. Lighting changes. PC's can easily go down
to
> 36inches of depth. Amano seems to do it without PC's on all those
tanks of
> his.

I reply:

For the reasons I previously mentioned Dupla is correct about normal
output fluorescent lighting. There is no doubt that jamming lamps close
togther impairs a fixtures efficiency to the point of actually losing
light. Light levels that would be considered high cannot be achieved at
the bottom of a 2' tank with NO T12 lamps. VHO, PC and MH are another
story. I don't know the details of Amanos lighting but if he is using
T12 lamps and deep tanks his lighting won't be high at the bottom of the
tank. Maybe high light at the bottom of a tank is not required but that
too is another matter.

Madan Subramanian wrote:

PMDD, Substrate fertilisation, CO2 etc., etc., can somehow be managed,
but
to get the aquarium looking pleasant one needs lighting and that is the
stumbling block for many of us.

I reply:

What sort of fluorescent lighting do you have in India? For instance
what normally is the diameter and wattage of a 4' lamp? You can do a lot
of things by overdriving regular fluorescent lamps with electronic
ballasts to get higher light levels. If an electronic ballast is
commonly available then it is likely that you can DIY something using
cheap commonly available lamps. Reflectors that will actually do
anything though are damned hard to make. I would try to avoid this. The
other obvious answer is to just use a 20" deep tank.

Wayne