Natural light levels
- Thread starter clayton
- Start date
mr . salty
Active Member
DAMN,I need to buy more bulbs. STEVE
reptilicus
Member
Hey Clayton,
that is exactly true. People always used to say to me "why the hell do you put 400-watt metal halides over your tank!" and I always reply that it's not even close to the amount of light on a reef flat! But there is a limit to the amount of light you can fit over a tank, which is why I prefer MH lighting to VHO or PC. Some reefers are now experimenting with 1000-watt MH's over there tanks, in fact someone I know is installing 1000-watters over his 500-gal aquarium in the near future. On the other hand though, the intensity does drop dramatically with depth, and many of the creatures we keep come from the 10-20 metre depth, and there is substancially less light down there than at 1m. I posted something on this with different lux levels very recently under one of the lighting threads.
Regards,
Tom
that is exactly true. People always used to say to me "why the hell do you put 400-watt metal halides over your tank!" and I always reply that it's not even close to the amount of light on a reef flat! But there is a limit to the amount of light you can fit over a tank, which is why I prefer MH lighting to VHO or PC. Some reefers are now experimenting with 1000-watt MH's over there tanks, in fact someone I know is installing 1000-watters over his 500-gal aquarium in the near future. On the other hand though, the intensity does drop dramatically with depth, and many of the creatures we keep come from the 10-20 metre depth, and there is substancially less light down there than at 1m. I posted something on this with different lux levels very recently under one of the lighting threads.
Regards,
Tom
clownfish
Member
I've heard it's 150,000 lux. That's a LOT of light, but I think it would be attainable with enough MH and a lot of money. I wonder how many 400w MH it would take for maybe a 200 gallon tank? I'm not buying a 200, just curious. (I'm actually a month away from buying a nice 70 and spending about a thousand big bucks. I'm 16, so I don't have room for a 200 even if I had the $$$$.) I wonder why it's tough to match nature. I hope new types of lighting come out. They could maybe put metal halide stuff in a flourescent tube and call it...UHO for Ultra High Output. That would be great.