Another cool thing about running solar tubes with actinics at night.. you get cool UFO looking lights on the top of your house. LOL.
Ace25's 75G Build Thread
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Ace,
Great job presenting these very educational and valuable findings. The info you share wouldn't be possible without significant investment on equipment on your part. Thanks for sharing.
Got your PM and will add your input to the other site.
Please consider tracking individual PAR readings and capturing spectral signatures at regular intervals as these bulbs progress in age. One factor that is extremely important to learn is which bulb has the best longevity as far as maintaining spectral quality. I've heard rumors that the Phoenix requires replacing sooner than others (within 6 mos), due to color shifting? You now have the tools to measure this pretty well. Riddle said a picture can be taken through the "spectrometer" via macro mode and this would greatly enhance presentation of your findings.
Again, keep up the great work and thanks for sharing!
BTW, on Guillo's tubes and the 1/4 PAR reduction...did you use those studio filters or household blue celophane? What if you allow a bit more sunlight through a filter/celophane with a few hole punches. Perhaps that'll balance out PAR/blue spectrum a little better? Not sure if you remember me mentioning before that one could even mix dots of different colors and shades to achieve the ideal PAR/spectral signature.
Great job presenting these very educational and valuable findings. The info you share wouldn't be possible without significant investment on equipment on your part. Thanks for sharing.
Got your PM and will add your input to the other site.
Please consider tracking individual PAR readings and capturing spectral signatures at regular intervals as these bulbs progress in age. One factor that is extremely important to learn is which bulb has the best longevity as far as maintaining spectral quality. I've heard rumors that the Phoenix requires replacing sooner than others (within 6 mos), due to color shifting? You now have the tools to measure this pretty well. Riddle said a picture can be taken through the "spectrometer" via macro mode and this would greatly enhance presentation of your findings.
Again, keep up the great work and thanks for sharing!
BTW, on Guillo's tubes and the 1/4 PAR reduction...did you use those studio filters or household blue celophane? What if you allow a bit more sunlight through a filter/celophane with a few hole punches. Perhaps that'll balance out PAR/blue spectrum a little better? Not sure if you remember me mentioning before that one could even mix dots of different colors and shades to achieve the ideal PAR/spectral signature.
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Hmm, never heard that with the Phoenix bulbs myself. I think they are still fairly "New" to the market (SE bulbs that is) so not sure how too many people have accurate information on that. I have heard that exact thing with 14k Hamilton bulbs though. Still, from visually looking at the Phoenix it is definately more blue than the Radium, so I can see how their lifespan will be reduced due to spectral shift.
Guillo used the household stuff. The Studio stuff blocked like 90% of the light where as the household stuff only blocked 25%.
...that's why I'm asking, since you now have the bulb and tools to measure against such claims.
BTW, check out the thread you referenced in your PM. Hope it get's some attention.
I definately plan to "keep an eye" on the spectrum of the 14k bulbs spectral output. With the Phoenix bulb being the most blue out of all of them, I suspect that is going to be the bulb with the shortest lifespan as well. I meant to mention this earlier. Yesterday made some more observations with the AquaMaxx bulb.. definately looked a little more eye pleasing after 8 hours of burning in vs 15 minutes, which I expected. My personal observation with my corals is the AquaMaxx bulb makes the greens in the corals pop out more, where as the Phoenix makes the Orange stand out the most and then to some extent reds. The AquaMaxx on the green base on both my Red Planet and Cali Tort are super bright green with the AquaMaxx.. never noticed those colors standing out as much with any other bulb.
Do you have a full pic of the setup of the guy with the solartubes? I guess you'd need a pretty wide tank to fit a solartube over it with room left for one or two T5HO actinics on either side, but I'm interested in seeing the configuration of it. Its something I've been interested in doing for quite a while.
Here, since RC is so slow sometime to come up. This is a good pic, although it is a 3 month old pic.. Guillo.. you need to take some updated FTS pics like this one with daylights. 
A local aquarist in my area actually uses them on his 1000g plywood setup. He bought the largest diameter home version that he could find and placed them over the setup. To say that it was intense was an understatement. The PPFD levels he was measuring were even higher than what you measured on Guillo's, but he was having a lot of trouble bleaching corals, too. Beyond that, he also left the protective cover off of them and the salt spray corroded them. He's waiting to redo the whole thing sometime soon. If I can get in touch with him again, I'll post a thread and show the tank in its heyday.
AFAIK, he was one of the first people to even use Solatubes (he's a contractor) over a tank. He installed them almost 10 years ago--he's just wishing that he took care of them a bit better, now.
AFAIK, he was one of the first people to even use Solatubes (he's a contractor) over a tank. He installed them almost 10 years ago--he's just wishing that he took care of them a bit better, now.
