DIY Lighting for Canopy

[canadawest]

Hey Jeanna, there are no stupid questions, just stupid people who don't ask questions! ;)

When referring to VHO lighting it just means you are running Very High Output florescent tubes, and has no reference to the colour or Kelvin rating of the lamps. Of the 4 lamps under my canopy, I have 2 VHO URI Super Actinics, 1 VHO URI 10,000K Aquasun and 1 NO GE 6500K Ultra Daylight.

What should be understood is that "Actinic" only refers to a special type of lamp that encourages photosynthesis and is available in NO or VHO. For example, you can buy a 48" NO Actinic lamp (like the Phillips 03) which is rated at 40W or a 48" VHO Actinic lamp (Like the URI Super Actinic) that produces 110W. They are the same colour, just run at different wattages because of your ballast. They supplement well not only because of the photosynthesis they encourage, but because the wavelength they produce is violet-blue and tends to make daylight K MH lamps (like a 5500K or the 6500K Iwasakis) look more pleasing to the eye (the blue light causes the yellow/green light from the MH to appear more white/blue).

So to answer your question, yes it is common to supplement MH lamps with Actinics, but it makes no difference (except for slightly higher intensity) if you run NO or VHO Actinics. I just happen to have an Icecap VHO ballast, so I run VHO lamps with my MH.

And now that I have more intensity with the MH lighting, when I replace my VHO Actinics, I will replace them with Phillips 03 NO Actinics in order to save money, as my Icecap ballast can run NO lamps as well (and almost as brightly as VHO Actinics) for half the price. :cool:

[stephane]

look I have my VHO prety close to my 250 saki and
never have any problem even if they come very hot



Fishnut I have pic of my canopy in the link below in my signature

[ 14 June 2002, 21:21: Message edited by: stephane ]

[fishnut]

Thanks to all who responded - I found this info very helpful. Going to test for phosphates and nitrates when I get test kits. I did notice a dead area in the tank in front of the overflow - the red algae is growing thicker here - will set up PH to increase water flow. Glad I didn't go ahead and use "quick-fix" antibiotic before getting opinions from this board - tks.

[Skimmerking]

hey there stephane nice looking canopy. I have a question about the ballast, Have you had any problems of running it in the canopy ?

[stephane]

Originally posted by asmodeus:
hey there stephane nice looking canopy. I have a question about the ballast, Have you had any problems of running it in the canopy ?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Nope I have five fan in the canopy 4x12v.to suck the heat out of the canopy + 1x110v. soon upgrade to 2x that blow on top of the tank so there alway fresh dry air in the canopy so the ballast are never hot