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Re: [APD] light and the w/gal rule



I understand the curiosity and the desire to pin things on
a firmer basis of data.

However, I wouldn't go so far as to say wpg is meaningless;
it's quite useful and proved so for many years.  

Fwiw, I refrain from annointing *the* wpg rule. There are
at least several wpg rules. Wpg is just a unit of measure
and one of the rules of thumb that used to be recommended
was 4wpg for CO2-injected tanks.  More recently, some of us
have recommended 2wpg as a general target. I have
suggested, here and in print, that 1.5wpg-2wpg works good,
as rule for non-CO2 injected tanks and 2wpg or more works
for CO2-injected aquaria but more than 2wpg and you have to
be more diligient about nutrient levels and cleaning. If
broadspectrum/triphosphor PCs and T5s and MHs change a lot,
I'd expect to revise my recommendations. That could happen
-- more likely having to do with ballast improvements than
striking bulb changes, but who knows? I don't expect big
improvements on MIRO as the best choice for reflector
material.

sh

--- Jerry Baker <jerry at bakerweb_biz> wrote:
> 
> . . . Sure, we can all put some reasonable amount of 
> light over
> the tank, and 
> even balance light levels by adjusting the photoperiod,
> but that doesn't 
> give us any hard data. Hard data are not required if you
> just want to 
> throw some plants in the tank and have them survive, but
> hard data is 
> required to understand and predict the behavior of plants
> in the 
> aquarium. Even if the end result is to say that watts per
> gallon is a 
> good rule of thumb, it still needs to be backed up with
> data other than 
> anecdotal evidence in order to have any real meaning.


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