Experiment

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wolverine25

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Dec 20, 2005
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Hello I am going to try an experiment with the effects of lighting on corals. The walmart in my area got rid of their tanks and i aquired them. They run on the same filtration and are all interconnected. The lights are T-12 and i know thats not the best but thats all i have and i am trying to replace ballasts to get T-8's. There are two light sockets over the tanks so i can use two tubes over the tanks. The tanks are 30 gallons per row and there are 6 rows. In each row there are two dividers except for one tank which has none. So I have 16 tanks, 15 ten gallon tanks and an open 30 gallon tank. I was blessed with a small school that will allow me to carry this out and my friends will help me this fall. I wrote to get some money to carry out this project and i recieved about $3000.

Now to the experiment i was going to see which combination of lighting is best for the corals. I will try two actinics over one set, two 20K over another, two 10ks over another, two 50/50s over the other, and my control will be one 10k and an actinic. The 6th tank will probly house fish just for show. I will use polyps, mushrooms, and some soft corals. If the corals start to fail they will be put into one of my tanks at home and they will be taken out of the experiment. I will get the corals in late aug or early sept.. The experiment will end in febuary because it will be entered into a science fair.

The reason i am posting this is because i think it would be neat for everyone to be able to follow and so that there might be some more understanding on lighting. I also want to know any advise or if someone thinks there might be something different or better to try. If any one has any questions feel free to ask.

Thanks Emery
 

Ace25

www.centralcoastreefclub. com
Oct 3, 2005
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I am wondering why you are doing this with such bad lighting? People wouldn't normally use T-12 or T-8's on any type of coral tank unless it is just the Actinic 03 to suppliment MH lights. Even then it is usually CFL or T5 Actinics, not normal fluorescent bulbs. The only difference between T12 and T8 is magnetic vs electronic balasts. Electronic ballasts start and operate quieter, with no flickering and increased efficiency in light output with less energy consumption than magnetic ballasts.

Plus when corals start to "fail" as you put it, they are usually dying and I have yet to be able to revive any coral that shows signs it is dying.

I think your experiment will only work with that lighting if you only use mushrooms and some polyps (I have noticed star polyps really like a lot of light, a lot more than your planning) but button polyps should be fine.

You may want to look at getting a few 2x13w mini compact fluorescent fixtures for a few of the tanks to add to the experiment. Sounds like you have plenty of tanks and enough $ to spring for a few of those.
 
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fsn77

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Feb 22, 2006
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While I applaud you for wanting to conduct an experiment with reef lighting, I fear that Ace25 is correct. An experiment with color spectrum alone under what most people would consider inadequate lighting is likely to provide little for comparison to the average reefkeeper. Any comparison of T12 or T8 lighting to more commonly used CF, MH, VHO, or T5 HO is somewhat meaningless unless there are enough T12 or T8 bulbs to make up for the differences in lighting output (not wattage, but actual lighting ouput -- PAR, LUX, etc.). If it is possible to upgrade the lighting to CF or even T5 HO (despite it being costly), there's a much better chance for useable results. Perhaps this could be done on a couple of the tanks, and the experiment conducted in pairs -- running bulb combinations A and B for time period Z, then combinations C and D run for the same time period (after the completion of the test using bulb combinations A and B), and so forth. While taking more time and a little more money (either of which you may or may not have), the results would seem to be more useful to the average reefkeeper.
 

wolverine25

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Dec 20, 2005
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Well I was wanting to use the tanks that i recieved but i can do something else because the the lighting won;t be sufficient. Unless i am wrong about what ballast i am thinking about using because i was going to buy the ballasts from the school because they replaced all of the lighting...it might be T-5. Would two T-5s over the tanks be alright if not wat are some experiments anyone would recommend. I won't buy any supplies until July so there is time.
 

Fishieness

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Jan 14, 2006
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While I applaud you for wanting to conduct an experiment with reef lighting, I fear that Ace25 is correct. An experiment with color spectrum alone under what most people would consider inadequate lighting is likely to provide little for comparison to the average reefkeeper. Any comparison of T12 or T8 lighting to more commonly used CF, MH, VHO, or T5 HO is somewhat meaningless unless there are enough T12 or T8 bulbs to make up for the differences in lighting output (not wattage, but actual lighting ouput -- PAR, LUX, etc.). If it is possible to upgrade the lighting to CF or even T5 HO (despite it being costly), there's a much better chance for useable results. Perhaps this could be done on a couple of the tanks, and the experiment conducted in pairs -- running bulb combinations A and B for time period Z, then combinations C and D run for the same time period (after the completion of the test using bulb combinations A and B), and so forth. While taking more time and a little more money (either of which you may or may not have), the results would seem to be more useful to the average reefkeeper.
i agree 100%. the results that would be obtained wouldnt be meaningful. and with such bad lighting, even spectrums arent likely to have too big of a difference in PAR level.
i woudl say that two t5s also wouldnt be sufficient. if they were t5 HO, it owuld be great. but two normal t5s wouldnt be that big of a difference form the t12 or the t8s. There also has already been a lot of tests done with spectrum to the point that we already know that the lower the K rating the higher the PAR. i think what needs to be done is testing different types of lighting. because even though there are some of them are obviously way ahead of others, some peopel still dont always believe there is a huge difference between Mh and PC lighting. i would suggest doing a MH, PC, and t5 test all with comparable fixtures if money permits. if you can, check through your local reef club. there are also people selling nice lighting systems for really cheap in mine.
good luck and i look forward to your results, no matter what you end up testing :)
 

wolverine25

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Dec 20, 2005
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fishieness, are you sayin that i should try like 150 watts of MH vs 150 watts of PC vs 150 watts of T-5 HO as an example. Also I like clams and think it would be cool to try somethin with them could i use these lights to compare which ones offer the best growth. Thanks everyone for your replies
 

Ace25

www.centralcoastreefclub. com
Oct 3, 2005
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There are definately more variables than just "wattage". Like FSN77 and Fishieness stated, PAR output is more important than wattage.

I am sure this example is not accurate, but say 2 T5HO lights at 24w ea for a total of 48watts is comparable in PAR output to 2x65w CF lights. With MH lighting you usually have to suppliment the MH with Actinics in some other form like VHO/CFL/T5HO.

If your going to just stick with softies like muchrooms then I really don't think MH lighting is needed at all and actually your probably more likely to do more harm than good sticking a 150w+ MH on top of a few 10 gallon tanks by burning/sun bleaching them. Please don't even consider clams for this project as clams really need MH lighting and are difficult even in good setups to maintain.

I think the only valuable test to the community in regards to mushrooms / zoos / polyps would be to test VHO vs T5HO vs CFL lights but that is going to be quite pricey. Definately would need to be a DIY project for the lighting as off the shelf lights would be very cost prohibitive.

Other variables to consider would be are you comparing watt vs watt or PAR vs PAR. In theory, if you go the PAR vs PAR route then there really should not be a noticible difference in appearence but noticible in power consumption. Watt vs Watt would tell you what lights are better at the same wattage, but if you go too low or too high on either Watts or PAR you could end up hurting the softies more than helping. There is definately a large buffer zone for mushrooms and lighting, just don't go under or over what they would require to live.

It is a very ambitious experiment to undertake and I hope we are not discouraging you. I wish you the best of luck.
 
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