Is anybody familiar with mercury vapor metal halides?
- Thread starter thered
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jiggsaw123
Member
Mercury Vapour lamps look similar to metal halide lamps but are nowhere near as effective in intensity and spectrum. These lamps peak in the green/yellow/orange wavelengths with some smaller peaks in the violet end of the spectrum. This makes fore excellent viewing with the added advantage of a natural "rippling" effect that only pendant spotlamps provide. If these lamps are used for light-loving invertebrates, then it would be wise to add extra actinic blue fluorescent tubes to support that end of the spectrum. Mercury vapour bulbs lose their efficincy quickly and will need replacing every 3-6 months if you are keeping light-loving corals.
The marine Aquarium Problem solver by Nick Dakin pg. 14
The marine Aquarium Problem solver by Nick Dakin pg. 14
ironreef
Member
I don't know about other MV bulbs but Iwaski last longer. test have been shown that they still run strong after 18mo. Iwaski accually has more blue spectrium than alot of 10k. Especially after 6mo. But they have alot of par in the yellow and green= High par bulb.They are good bulbs. I would only use 6.5k iwaski MV or Ushio,AB, Or radium bulbs. IMo anything German or Japanese. the rest don't test so well. At least under alll the recent lighting test I've seen that they used A spectrodiometer. If they didn't use that or provide data they has used that I wouldn't belive IMO. Just like AB 10k the package say 13k But the test says 8000+ cct. Dunno could have been a bad bulb.... but the variences can be @ 20% +/- My point is you can't go by the manufacture. Go by what looks good, what you like and most important how your corals grow and color.JME