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Re: How much light is reflected by a glass cover?
- To: Aquatic Plants Digest <Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com>
- Subject: Re: How much light is reflected by a glass cover?
- From: Wright Huntley <jwwiii at pacbell_net>
- Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2003 21:27:25 -0800
- User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20021120 Netscape/7.01
About 8% at normal incidence and even more at angles off of 90 degrees.
Each surface reflects about 4%, and there are two. I'd guess average
reflected light to be at least 15%-20% if the source is close to the
glass. Some, but usually not much, is rerefected into the tank.
In the important red end of the spectrum, a 1/4" cover glass can also
absorb another 15% of the useful light, again at normal incidence, and
more at other angles. [If the glass looks green at the edges, it absorbs
red light.] Make that another 20-30% loss of useful light. Since it is
only in the red end, it might be 10% of the useful photosynthetic energy.
All told, I expect a clean cover glass to waste maybe 25% of the useful
energy, so it is pretty significant. [Unfortunately, my fish are all
killies, and air just doesn't keep them in the tanks. :-)]
Wright
> Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2003 20:59:39 -0500
> From: "Pete" <peteal at sympatico_ca>
> Subject: How much light is reflected by a glass cover?
>
> Hello, I had a glass cover for my 90gal tank for evaporation and jumping
> fish protection for a long time. Recently I'v tried it without one as I no
> longer have fish that are a high risk of bailing from the tank.
>
> I now have noticed that my Rotala rotundifolia is now getting red at first
> 1/3 of the tank bottom instead of at the top 1/4 (where I'd have to soon
> prune it anyways) and other plants are bushier. I have two 175W MH lamps
> pretty close to the surface so I thought with 350W of MH I had plenty of
> power to get light past the glass cover but since I see an improvement
> without the glass I guess not?!
>
> So does anyone know about how much light I was losing with this cover
> reflecting light from the tank?
>
> The MH lamps have a tempered glass shield also... the cover was more for
> fish and tank protection.
>
> Thanks
> Pete.
--
Wright Huntley -- 209 521-0557 -- 731 Loletta Ave, Modesto CA 95351
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