Re: [AGA Member] compact inter-node growth please...

[Roger Miller <roger@spinn.net>]

Aviel,

I prefer to use the color rendition index (CRI) to select lamps.  Ivo's 
article is very useful, but it doesn't provide much information on CRI.  Hoa 
Nguyen's article at

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Hills/2637/spectra.html

has CRI ratings for some of the bulbs you mention.  CRI runs on a scale up to 
100.  The best color rendition is achieved by lamps with high CRI ratings.

I recently bought 4 Phillips F32ADV850 lamps which are very efficient and 
appear very bright to my eyes, but have a CRI in the 80's.  After a few weeks 
I became so annoyed by the quality of the light that I replaced them with 
four F32TL950 lamps, which are much less efficient but produce a better 
quality of light.  There is also a Phillips F36TL'D950 that I think is 
unavailable in the US but can be found elsewhere.   The TL'D950 is brighter 
than the TL950.

Among less expensive T12 lamps I prefer the "C50" lamps.  These are low 
efficiency, high-CRI lamps with about 5000K.  All of the major manufacturers 
make some version of the same lamp, but under different names: Chroma50, C50 
and Colortone, for instance.

I don't know that 10,000K bulbs really trigger algae more than any other 
bulb.  I would never use them because they render colors very inaccurately.

In my tanks, long internode spacing is usually a sign that the plant is 
shaded.


Roger Miller

On Saturday 27 March 2004 20:03, you wrote:

> Back to 'technical' Ladies/Gentlemen???
>
> I thought Daylight is a cheap blue and Warm White is a cheap red.
> I use the OSRAM Lumilux and according to Ivo Busko article on AB
> http://www.aquabotanic.com/lightcompare.htm the daylight Dlx has a preety
> good 'blue PUR' (11.9) and the warm while dlx has a good 'red PUR' (11.6)
> comparing to bulbs on the same Watts category.
>
> Now if I have to move on to 10K - fine 10K - but I thought these
> Fluorescents are more for reefs and could trigger algae. Also could one
> such 10K "inhibibt" the growth or should I replace ~50% of my FLs?

 ------------------
 To unsubscribe from this list, please send mail to majordomo@thekrib.com
 with "Unsubscribe aga-member" in the body of the message.  Archives of
 this list can be found at http://lists.thekrib.com/aga-member/