vho lighting and no bulbs, GE ultra daylight

[dorian965]

i have seen articles that say running these standard bulbs , full spectrum, would give you close to the same light intensity as vho bulbs after 1 month of running both. these bulbs cost around five bucks and when run with icecap 660 ballast that they would only need replacing every 2-3 years.

has anyone heard of this or had any experience with this set up.

also, will i be happy with vho on a standard 55 gallon reef.

i was worried about heat and that was another solution with the normal output bulbs and 660 balast. they ran a lot cooler.

thanks for the help. dorian

 

[melosu58]

When I had my 55 I had no problem with VHO bulbs. I always kept top of canopy open though.

 

[seaham358]

Not sure what bulbs your talking about.. But IMO I find it hard to believe that you will be able to run a bulb 2-3 years and get a good high quality light. Some things we can't cut corners on in a reef tank, 1 is water and 2nd is lights. When 95% of your corals needs light to live why cut corners to save $20. You can get a great URI bulb for under $30, its the proper spectrium for coral growth.
If thats what you want to do then go ahead and post back your findings... I'd be interested to see what type of coral growth you get.

VHO is a great light source when the proper bulbs are used. Bulbs not only provide light needed for corals but they bring out the colors of the fish. again when the proper bubls are used.. JMO..

 

[dorian965]

http://www.icecapinc.com/rev1.htm ...d have the same results with the 660 ballast.

 

[seaham358]

I found that interesting... Makes you think..
It would be worth a try on a tank with a few corals to see how they react. You would still need some type of actinic bulbs if you want to get some nice color in the tank. I see its only for the 48" 40 watt bulbs... Do they not make that bulb in 72"?

 

[cmor1701d]

I asked Anthony Calfo at a demo the other night about lighting for a frag tank. He said 6500k would be best for coral growth.

 

[fishfreek]

The VHO I have over the 75 while they get hot enough you dont want to touch and hold them they dont have any real radent heat. Never seen a temp problem with 4 X 110W VHO over the 75 with just 2" clearance. Of course I do also run an open top vs having glass or something over it.

The studies showing the light output to be close to VHO. How did they measure light output? Also at what water depth was the compairson output measurements taken?

 

[MT79]

url]http://www.icecapinc.com/rev1.htm
check this article out and see if it makes since. i found it in a couple of places.

Note that article is SEVEN years old(04/99)! You would think if the results were desirable and proven there would have been or would be more talk about it on the forums, in magazines, etc....

 

[fishfreek]

I scanned the article and didnt really see any information about color output that included difinitive numbers of some sort. It just says the measurements where taken with a light meter but not much more than that.

I wouldnt put much weight in this article based on this as it seems to be move loostly based on physical visual intensity or some reading on some non disclosed light meter. Compairing the specitrum output of the bulbs is a nice touch but specitrum isnt everything. This just means the bulbs will 'look' simular. We also dont know at what distance the light output was measured or how the measurements where taken to avoid light contamination from the ambient light.

The study should have measured the par level of the bulbs at 2' distance where the bulbs where mounted in a fixed mounting inside a black box so as to shield the par meter from ambient light in the room.

 

[dorian965]

prettt much what i got from it. the article is old and you would have heard more about it.would be nice though.

 

[seaham358]

it would be worth trying on a fowlr to see how it works... I would never cut corners with bulbs on my reef but a fowlr with a few easy corals it would be fun to see how it looked and the corals grew.
If I just didnt get a killer deal on a PC I was going to get a 660 for my new/used tank and I would have tried this..