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Kinetic's ELOS 120

Gomer said:
well, consider the spectrum that corals are under in nature compared to what we give them in our tanks :p
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And what spectrum are they at in nature? The answer depends very greatly upon their location, sure those are close to surface corals, but what colors are they typically? The absorption coefficient for red light is around 100 times that of blue in water, and most of the spectrum is already absorbed with 10 meters. Red is completely extinguished at 15 meters. Are there exceptions to coral colors? Always, but the vast majority of what we keep I'm guessing doesn't particular dig the red side of the spectrum.
 
A cast majority of the corals in my tank come from 10m and up.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Gomer said:
well, consider the spectrum that corals are under in nature compared to what we give them in our tanks :p
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And what spectrum are they at in nature? The answer depends very greatly upon their location, sure those are close to surface corals, but what colors are they typically? The absorption coefficient for red light is around 100 times that of blue in water, and most of the spectrum is already absorbed with 10 meters. Red is completely extinguished at 15 meters. Are there exceptions to coral colors? Always, but the vast majority of what we keep I'm guessing doesn't particular dig the red side of the spectrum.
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It doesn't matter what location on earth and at what depth, natural light will not end up having the spectrum of a radium or ATI config, or solaris setup, or PC's or a hybrid of t5, HM, LED.

Here is something I did down to 1M. If you don't believe me, I can put in the time to extrapolate to 5,10,20,100m and overlay what we actually put over our aquariums.
837_06_08_08_2_19_58.jpg
 
maybe. I can't make the bulb, but I do have some connections to some very very smart people who can come up with the driver, and modeling the heatsink etc isn't an issue ;)

I'd give it a low probability of happening, but I have someone I want to run this buy who would probably WANT to get one of these or make a driver just for shits and giggles. He's an electronic freak.
 
Oh I'm not doubting that artificial bulbs are very VERY rough approximations to what the sun juices out. All I'm saying is that the intensity of those less energetic colors drops off much more rapidly than the bluer bulbs (which is what I originally gathered as your arguing point, which I guess I was wrong).

As to your graph what exactly am I looking at. I'm guessing the red/blue/green lines are how much light gets transmitted at each depth? With the yellow simply being a solar spectrum overlay for comparison? (or is that the 1 meter mark?) Reason I ask, is because according to your legend 100mm is not 1 meter ;)

But yeah, do the time for 5, 10, 20. I'd be interested in the results, and for ease (although I know you probably just got a computer program to do it all), stick between 400 - 700 nm, I don't give a rats ass what IR and Radio does in the water ;)

Anyone else wondering what poor Art is thinking? "God damn these people derailing my thread like this... AGAIN" :D
 
oops. ya, I can do math :p That plot was originally (iirc) dealing with IR absorption which is why it extends out there :) I have the source data at work in IGOR, but since no one has IGOR here, I'll see if I can work it up in Excel as well :) I just need to get the raw data again (which isn't trivial when you are at home void of journal access).
 
Art I am sure is OK with us derailing it :)

Nice one Tony. Glad we have such experts around here! You ROCK!
 
Haha derailing or making this topic way more interesting and useful? I just learned a TON and am still processing all the information. This plasma thing looks cool. Does it use a lot less wattage? I basically want to keep my SPS but use way less energy. Maybe not just for costs of energy bills, but for the principle of it. But I also don't want a tank full of tan =X

But yeah, tank is still alive and kicking. The remote deep sand bed I took offline. Didn't seem to do anything, but I have no phosphates really being produced to begin with.

Anyway, continue the lighting discussion please =)
 
It looks like the Aquaillumination LED has a bunch of fans on it. How loud is it? One of my biggest gripes with my T5/MH setup is the extremely loud fans =(
 
The MBA units had no fans on them. It uses ~250w and produces the par of nearly a 400w MH.
 
GreshamH said:
The MBA units had no fans on them. It uses ~250w and produces the par of nearly a 400w MH.
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in the video it looks like a pretty long tank (72"?) using only one lamp. That lamp is the 250watt that provides 400watt MH like PAR? The video has a 12" looking fan on it, but it wasn't even on.

Also just to light a 48" x 20" x 20" tank, I'd definitely want to reduce / dim it right? Will the spread be too much with a lumenarc reflector?

Let me know if these questions are better asked towards Aquaillumination directly or something.

Burning a grand on a plasma light might be better than burning much more on a LED setup I think? Or am I missing something?

Also, the aquaillumination site doesn't show any prices etc. for the plasma, is it because it's still in development mode?

Also gresh, when you say the MBA units, that's the event you went to, not the actual brand? And the brand is still made by AquaIllumination or at least distributed from them by that Lifo company? Just trying to get all the information straight in my head =)

Thanks!!!
 
AI is using the same company source for the PLASMA as is MBA (Monterey Bay Aquarium) (Luxim). The company itself is in Sunnyvale :) LIFI is the actual product name. AI is using Luxim parts and their own reflector.

AI is just now starting to play with it so it will not be on their site.

In a 7' tank you'd need two for coverage but you'd need to turn them down to like 50% power. That is unless you don't mind dark corners. FWIW a better reflector needs to be designed for these as Tony has pointed out :)
 
What are the color temperatures of these plasma lamps? Going by the literature it looks like ~6000K is the "bluest" they offer in the "40 series". I cringe very deeply whenever people compare outputs of two different mediums without specifying exactly what they're comparing. I mean if you're comparing to certain 20000K bulbs, hell you can the equivalent of a 400W output with only 250W if your 250W is closer to the 10kK region, and your 400W is up in the 20's just with metal halides. I believe the Solaris LED had this little bit of controversy when they claimed one of their 24" hunks was equivalent to a 175W MH bulb... conveniently choosing a 20kK XM I believe which doesn't have much output (regardless of the ballast).

Art: When realistically are you going to have your tank up and ready to go?

Going from the reef builder's site
Aqua Illumination Plasma Lighting gets closer to reality
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This is from last week, I doubt you could get these plasma lamps unless you had an in at the company who produces them for a little while. Plus if these things are such hot sh*t as they're being portrayed, there most likely will be some long waitlist when they do come out (I think the Solaris had a pretty good sized pre-order waitlist as well).

IMO, wait until you're a couple weeks out from "NEEDING" the light for the tank, when the tank is ready to come online, then look at the lighting options out there, and what's available, that should give ample time to make your decision, have them ordered and shipped to you.

If you absolutely must have some new technology and can't get it, worst cast scenario is you toss an old fixture (I'm sure some members have plenty sitting in a garage :D), over the tank until the light that YOU want is actually available to get shipped to you.

There really is no sense getting hyped about a technology if you can't buy it, and no sense buying high end equipment and letting it collect dust if plans change (something you might have experience in?? ;)). After all lighting really is a small piece of the puzzle when it comes to keeping SPS healthy and colorful.
 
Mike, given how the technology works, they can easily change the temperature. 6k is convenient for their typical target buyer. Higher K bulbs can in theory be easily made if there is a market to have the run made. I'm sure that will happen in time if these take off in the industry.
 
I'm not arguing that higher kelvin bulbs can/can't be made, what my concern is (if you can really call it a concern) is the output claims what what they DO have now, as I said 6000K vs 20000K it's a no brainer to know the 6000K bulb is going to output much more than a 20000K, however will the same be true if they made a 20000K plasma bulb? Basically I'm trying to see if they're comparing (and by then, whomever Gresham is referencing) equal color temperatures so that at the end of the day me as a consumer would end up saving money (PG&E) AND get the color spectrum I want (or close to it)

Like I said, I can get a 10000K 250W bulb and have it have the same PAR values of a 400W 20000K bulb, and I don't need to spend $1k+ on a bulb to do that ;)
 
Oh, I totally agree with you there. If they give a quantifiable value like..total lumens from 400-800, then we are golden. We have their spectrum, so we can calculate the spectral PAR output. Then you can compare directly to any bulb on Sanjay's site.
 
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