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    Hoppy,

    You probably don't remember but you sold me a converted par meter a couple of years ago. Just wanted to drop you a note that I've been using the meter quite a bit recently and I wanted to say thanks for taking the time to make one and ship it out to me. Your par meter has been extremely useful for making making my light intensity adjustments. I really appreciate it and I enjoy reading all of your post. Thanks for sharing all of your thoughts and insight into the planted tank hobby.


    Ed

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    birbaliktanki, go to Ebay and search for "digital lux meter". The first one that came up is the one I have used extensively. Other online stores sell them too.

    You are correct about how to get the lux reading and convert it to PAR. If the room light where you measure the intensity is too low to register more than a few hundred lux by itself, you can just ignore it. Otherwise, subtract it from your readings.

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    hi hoppy,

    hope you dont mind me sending you a pm. i saw your post in phil taylors thread and i have a some questions about it.

    can you recommend a decent luxmeter with reasonable price?

    this is what i understood in your procedure, please correct me if im wrong.

    i will take out the lights from the tank and put it somewhere in air. simulate the distance (from lights to substrate) with the test area and run the meter. divide the result by 65 and i will come up more or less with the par level in the tank. does the test area needs to be very dark or brightly lit?

    thanks in advance for your time.

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    Thank you Hoppy. I actually ordered a Current Satellite Plus LED for my tank. It had great reviews and claimed to have 35+ PAR at 12 inches. Should work well for my 29 gallon low tech. I figured the money I would save in bulbs and the efficiency of the fixture would be well worth the cost.

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    Nazasaki, that light should give you about 40 PAR at 12 inches and 30 PAR at 18 inches. That should work OK for a low light tank. I would use the full spectrum bulb since it has worked for you. The lower PAR will probably slow the growth of the anubias noticeably, but they should still grow well.

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    gradstudentnerd, sorry to be a bit late, but I don't monitor this section very often. I think you will get around 45 PAR with that light, which is enough to grow carpet plants. They may try to grow higher than you want, but I have read that people do grow carpets with that much light.

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    Thank you for your lighting advice for my low tech 20 long. It's been a month using my single full spectrum T8 and my anubias and marimo are flourishing! I'm ready to move up to a 29 gallon and transfer my plants over (my anubias are a little too tall on the driftwood for the 20L). With this in mind do you belive my t8 will still suffice despite the 6 in height increase? According to your PAR charts I'm okay but I have people recommending T5HO and Planted Plus LED fixtures (way to much light in my opinion!). No CO2 in my tank. Only flourish 3x week.

    If this is the case would it be best to go with a "plant bulb" such as the Aqueon 17 watt Floramax which peaks in all the right spectrums but appears dim to the human eye or stick with my current Aqueon 17watt full spectrum that is the correct spectrum, given me good growth so far but is more "appealing" to us rather than the plants? Thank You!

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    Hoppy,

    Thanks again for your advice on my lightening situation with my 65 gallon tank. I do have one follow up question to my thread: with my AquaticLife Marquis Freshwater 36 Inch Dual Lamp T5 HO Light Fixture above my tank about two inches - if go pressurized co2 and ei dosing regularly, there should be enough light intensity to the bottom of the substrate to my light, lets say total 24 inches to grow things such as pearl weed right?

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    Miles, I can't tell from what you wrote, how much light you have. What is the height of your tank, and how far is the light from the substrate? How long is the tank? I also don't know what plants you have, so I don't know how much light you should have to make them grow.

    Shrimp can be very sensitive to CO2 in the water. It isn't the pH that causes problems for them, but the CO2 itself. As I recall, people with other than cherry shrimp or equally hardy shrimp do not try to use high light, and do not try to use a lot of CO2. The fact that you have BBA means you probably have too little CO2 in the water for the amount of light you have. You could either reduce the light intensity or use more CO2, but using more CO2 would be a problem for the shrimp. So, first let's try to determine how much light you have.

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    thanks hoppy! :) your wisdom is helping me get back on my feet with my iwagumi tank. i just read your par/watt http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=184368 and i found myself with way too much light for the cfl bulb graph. (17.1 mr aqua, dhg, hc plants, lights will be 13 inches from the substrate, pressurized co2, ei dosing) I'm assuming that this fixture which is rated at 13watts max cfl (2 of them should be more than enough to suffice about probably 90-100 par which is high lighting according to you. Going to 23 watted bulbs 13 inches would of put me close to 200 par which is doable but im pretty sure alot more maintenance etc..so with this set up i have would you think 2 13 watt cfl's 13 inches would be more than enough. thank hoppy i appreciate your wisdom. :)

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    There really isn't a unique answer to the question about how high a wattage you can use in a fixture that is labeled as a 40 watt max fixture. If the fixture was made to be used with CFL bulbs, it may be labeled based on the "equivalent to" wattages of CFL bulbs. Or, if it is made to be used with any type of bulb, it would probably be rated based on the maximum current and the maximum heat load from the bulb, so the 40 watts would mean 40 real watts, not "equivalent to" watts. When I used CFL bulbs I always used sockets and wiring that were rated for real watts, and it is still possible that all fixtures are rated for real watts. A good way to decide would be, for a commercially available light fixture, to see what specific bulbs are recommended to be used - CFL bulbs or some other kind of bulb. If it is CFL bulbs I would assume "watts" means "equivalent watts", but if it is other bulbs, such as incandescent bulbs, I would assume "watts" mean real watts.

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    hoppy...if i may have one more question for you since you are good with lights... i have a 40 watt max fixture(but for some reason it says to only use 13 watt cfl) I can actually go to say..... a 26 watt cfl and still be safe right? I plan on putting 2 of those on my 17 gallon carpeted mr aqua tank. what do you think. thanks :)

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    thanks hoppy...I decided to get into this hobby again after seeing everyone's tanks..i failed before with cyano bacteria and had a newborn so was scared of him bumping the co2 tank over or something.. this time..lots of plants co2 lesser light and non limiting ferts for my iwagumi (hc and dwarf hair grass) *cross fingers*

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    It does look like you have plenty of magnesium in your tap water, so no GH booster is needed.
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