metal halide idea?!

[zanoshanox]

okay so i was thinking...in order to make your lighting more intense...you need a lower spectrum bulb. For example, a 6500 k bulb will have a higher PAR rating than a 1000 k bulb... But the reason people dont use them is because they have a terrible yellow looking color...well i was thinking...
what if you get a reflector with a slight blueish tint...the light boundes off the reflector and gives the desirable blue/light color we all want...woudl this work....?!?
Here's a pic that gave me the idea...

 

[tropills]

yea makes sense,, but tanks need the blue spectrum of light, I would just be worried about real bad algae growth with to much yellow and red with the lower kelvin bulbs. JMO
Greg

 

[trainfever]

yellow light bouncing off a blue reflector would give you green water.

 

[zanoshanox]

okay thanks guys. i figured there'd be some reason why people don't do that. Thanks for the input though.

 

[scsinet]

Remember that a surface that reflects light doesn't change the wavelength, it only reflects a certain band of color.
Assuming perfect conditions for the sake or argument...
When you have a 6500K bulb, that bulb puts off a whole range of colors, but it spikes very high at the 6500K wavelength.
If you put a reflector on that only reflects 10K light, most of the 6500K wavelength rays will be absorbed by the reflector instead of reflected back. The 10K rays, which account for a much smaller percentage of the lamps total output would be reflected back.
The human eye is not very good at distinuishing small color variances like these, so the tank may appear bright, but it's not getting nearly the light output it would by you using a 10K bulb in the first place.

 

[thereefkeeper]

Originally Posted by trainfever
yellow light bouncing off a blue reflector would give you green water.
Yellow + Blue = Green :cheer:
I thought the green stuff was the stuff we did not want in the tank? :thinking:

 

[zanoshanox]

Thanks SCI for the in depth input. It was just an idea reefkeeper, just wondering if anyone had ever tried it or if it was even a good idea