PAR measurements

[Marcel G]

I have made some PAR measurements of selected lights (T8, T5, MH), which could be helpful at least for basic orientation.
For more information you can visit the following web page translated into english:
http://akva.wu.cz/

View attachment 3671

 

[Gerryd]

I have made some PAR measurements of selected lights (T8, T5, MH), which could be helpful at least for basic orientation.
For more information you can visit the following web page translated into english:
http://akva.wu.cz/

View attachment 3665

Nice work. Thanks for the effort! This will help many folk I am sure..I esp like you did several common lighting types, eg HQI, T5, T8 etc,

 

[Tom Barr]

You can see that the ADA lighting is very low PAR relative to the T5's and other MH's and the LED's.

They are not high light.

My lighting is 4-6x more intense and I use LESS wattage, and I have a dimmer controller and far more bulb color combos.
This is about what I measured on a 20th ranked ADA contest tank, so it's pretty much in line with the same tank size and lighting and a well scaped example.

You can see the spread evens out nicely after about 12" for MH's and T5's.

 

[Marcel G]

For me personally it was a suprise to see that the difference in PAR between T8 and T5 is not as big as I thought (actually they both gave quite similar results). Also notice the differences at HQI with different lamps/bulbs: Blau seems to give most light intensity, then MegaChrome (= original Giesemann bulb), last is ADA. Of course there could be a big difference in longevity or color spectrum (this I don't know for now). The next month I would like to order some good reflector for SHO bulbs (see http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/PowerCompact.html), which could be a good alternative for HQI (+ much better prize). So in the course of time I would like to add/measure other kind of lights.