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Re: GE Chroma vs Super Daylight

Karen Randall wrote:

<<Yes, it may very well be due to a difference in spectrum.  Blue end light

encourages short, bushy growth while red end light encourages tall growth.

The bottom line is that if you have _enough_ light, no matter the lumens,

watts or spectrum, your plants will grow.  With too little, it doesn't

matter how good the other factors are.>>

Odd. My perception of the GE Super Daylights is that they are a whiter/bluer
bulb and the Chromas 50s a warmer (somebody mentioned orange?) bulb. So by my
perception of the color of each bulb, the Super Daylights _should_ have
produced a more compact growth (they didn't) and the Chroma 50s taller growth
(the space 'tween nodes has decreased dramatically)? 

Now I'm really confused. Either that, or my plants are. Or maybe it's the
quantity of light (200W/75G).

Or maybe it was the kitty poop...  <grinning wildly ;D>

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JOE CHEUNG <joehcheung at rocketmail_com> wrote on:
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 15:02:02 -0800 (PST)


<<Since most of us avoid sunlight as a main light source for plant tanks, we'd
opt for light bulbs whose color temperatures very close to the Sun's. Say,
5700K.>>

Not me! The tank I'm talking about is situated at a 90° angle to a window, not
more than a foot from it. It gets some direct morning light. After I deal with
the algae battle from _HELL_ in spring (there's a marshy area behind the
house--who knows what floats in on "gentle" spring breezes <g>), growth is
twice what I get during winter months. Sunlight is the best "bulb" IMHO. We
try, but we never seem to duplicate it. For _my_ tank and in _my_ situation,
the direct sunlight is a blessing, not a problem.

FWIW, I understand how Kelvin affects color perception. In my industry
(graphics) we use booths that have daylight bulbs so that will have the least
impact on color perception. We don't want to order color corrections on
somebody's skin and have them turn out green in the printing process <G>.

<<I'm begining to be convinced by this. GE Daylight Ultra seems to promote
foilage bigger than with C50 in my case.>>

I'm glad the Ultras work for you, and that they work well. For my two planted
tanks, the Chromas work better. But every tank (even one in the same location
taken care of by the same aquatic gardner) is different. For me, I get better
growth on the stem plants, the nodes are closer together, with the Chroma 50s.
The Super Daylights just make my stem plants _leggy_.

<<For those who are looking for a "better" light bulb, I think a tank full of
healthy plants is more pleasant to the eyes than a couple of "better" light
bulbs with "better" colors on an below-to-average plant tank.>>

Oh I've _got_ healthy plants. If you'd like to see for yourself, go to
http://members.aol.com/snotabby and follow the link from "The Zoo Crew".
You'll see a tankfull of healthy plants. Since the fish are tiny to begin with
they don't show up in the photo. You'll have to take my word on it that the
fishes are happy too ;D

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and finally... Richard Sexton writes:

<<If you ever say a graph of the output spectra of the two tubes you'd know
why. The C50 is more or less flat across the whole visible spectra - similar
to sunlight. The other one has a more or less gaussian distribution around
green. It has more red and blue than

most tubes (red is real hard - expensive to "make") but it's still nowhere
near the C50's.>>

"similar to sunlight". Hmmmm...there is the answer to my perpelexing question.
Oh wait...maybe not. Doesn't Amano use bulbs that have a predominantly GREEN
spectrum? Arrrrrgh!!!! <g>

From wet, cold and dreary NH...

Susan 
Who's feeling very much like a "Piper Cub" on the subject of lighting <g>