SubRosa
BS Bulldozer
In light of some of the experimentation going on with leds, I thought this http://www.championlighting.com/product.php?productid=73002&cat=1592&page=1 was a fixture which deserves a look. They are among the most ubiquitous low priced led fixtures which are suitable for reef aquaria. The link is to a private branded line distributed by a local wholesaler of aquarium equipment. The lights are available with different configurations of leds and from many sellers. Price of the unit I referenced is on the high side, but the convenience of being 15 minutes away from a no questions asked replacement struck me as a good deal as most of these I use on customer tanks. To those unfamiliar with reef aquaria, light is food for most corals. Although corals look plant-like they are indeed animals, albeit animals with symbiotic relationship with a special type of algae known as zooanthellae. The algae live in the coral's tissue and photosynthesize just like terrestrial plants, producing glucose which feeds the host coral. Obviously this shows that reef aquaria require both good quantities and qualities of light. This fixture is generally regarded in the reef keeping community as approximately equal to a 175W metal halide light for reef usage. For my experiment the light will be hung approximately 2' above the growing area. Test subjects will be a variety of plants, cps and others. Pictures are an issue right now as my phone suffered an impact which damaged the lens. I will try to get pics of the set up this weekend, including baseline photos of the test plants.
