[Prev][Next][Index]

re:High intensity lights - question



>I'm trying to do something opposite of what we usually try to do - I'm
>trying to grow algae. I have a setup to grow phytoplankton (suspended algae
>essentially) to feed diaphnia and fairy shrimp. I'd like to have more intense
>lighting for the phytoplankton. Thought an inexpensive source would be
>lights from home centers.
>
>Which of the following lights would be more suitable as far as the light
>spectrum goes? The choices are: halogen, sodium vapor and mercury vapor.
>Halogen would be the easiest as far as hookup is concerned. THANKS for any
>advise.
>
>By the way, I've used up my homemade liquid fertilizer and will make more
>in the next few days. If anyone is interested in the recipe or getting
>some, E-mail me directly.

I haven't tried this, but I've thought about it some.  

I have been very successful producing opaque green water in a tank with 24h 
lighting, ramshorn snails, and optionally, ghost shrimp (you'll propagate ghost 
shrimp in this setup too).

I just used a 10g tank with a 15w tube on top.

The thing I've been tossing around is:  You know those compact fluorescent 
screw-in type tubes?  Well, if you could control the temperature properly, you 
would probably be able to submerge the end of one of those tubes (preferably 
the planar arrangement in the tank and get significantly higher transmission 
rates into the water.  If the temperature could be controlled, you could use 
the ramshorn snails to keep the tube clean and if you could run it 24h, you 
could probably have really gross-looking water in no-time.  :-)

At this time, it's only a thought, and probably should be thought about some 
more before implementation.

David W. Webb
Enterprise Computing Provisioning
Texas Instruments Inc. Dallas, TX USA
(214) 575-3443 (voice)  MSGID:       DAWB
(214) 575-4853 (fax)    Internet:    dwebb at ti_com
(214) 581-2380 (pager)  Text Pager:  pgr at ti_com Subj:PAGE:David Webb