Curare *bombed* Nano.

[Curare]

hehehe, you have no idea how many "reinventions" this tank has gone through.

It started out life as tabletop "home" for a lonely betta, and then just seemed to get more and more stuff thrown at it, then it was a home for some white clouds after the poor betta met an untimely end.. I then went planted, and then futher went heated and planted, and then heated, planted, CO2 injected, and put in our bathroom.

I was never really that happy with it's appearance,seeing as it had all this junk at the back of the tank and everything always went wierd. The substrate always let me down just not letting much grow apart from vallis, and after a myriad of attempts to get it right (some a little erm, "agricultural") and always ending in algae, we gave up, just at the same time as we had fry appear in my 50 gal.

It then became a bare grow out tank, and the fruits of my labour are now swimming in the 10 gal.

Anyway, it has laid dormant for a few months, till I decided that I needed to set it up with EVERYTHING right this time, starting withthis
As it stands, here is the tank. it's an 8 x 8 x 10 3 gal high



and the pipe work is all acrylic, and was built like this

The lighting comes from a single 15w 6500k CF, so hopefully it should work nicely.


the reflector is just simple aluminium foil, spray bondeded to the hood.

The hood incidentally is actually a display box for some georgio amani perfume, it's been modified, sealed, sprayed metallic black and viola, instant hood!

[mrbelvedere]

Aluminum foil scatters light. Use mylar sheeting or paint it white. Also, you guys sure do have a funny name for generic Axe. They really call it Lynx in Australia? That's the ethnocentrism talking.

[Curare]

actually that's spray paint.

for underarms.

yes they do call it that

How do you figure that aluminium foil scatters light?

[Ðank]

Turn off the lights and turn on a flashlight. Shine the light on the foil and try to reflect it and illuminate something.

You'll find that it is a very poor reflector.

[Curare]

Okay, I have done some research into this ,and there's no doubt that naf old aluminium foil makes excellent diffused reflectors for photography.

Now in this case I decided to do a little experiment, in the most hermetically sealed environment known to man, my workshop.

these tests were conducted to see if MY setup was going to be better or worse with what I had in there at the moment.

The camera is a NIKON D50 set at 1.5m from the screen, and the lamp at 1.0m from the screen. Camera settings were 1/5 sec @ F11. on manual.

the screen before the light was switched on.


exposed lamp (no reflector)


existing (factory finish) reflector


White screen (paper)


Polished aluminium foil


The difference? It's pretty much as you see here, and I'm sure that most of the light reflected up into the hood is reabsorbed by the lamp anyway, there's not much to gain, but every little bit does help, and rather than painting it white (which will age yellow) I'll stick to my shiny metal thanks.

[BumMonkey]

bit off topic
but for the guy who thought lynx was a funny name.....
thats what they call it here in the uk too, sooooo maybe its you weird americans that they give it a funny name for

[Livebearer101]

Lynx Africa and Lynx Click are niceeee

[Curare]

Hehehe., that's there so that you crazies could get a sense of scale not a sense of smell! ROFL!!

[Wasserpest]

On your reflector comparison, not sure if this is my computer or eyes or what, but it looks like the "factory finish" reflector beats all other setups.

I am not saying it is too little light... but I agree that aluminum foil is a bad choice for a reflector. Paint it white... would give you more light (again... not saying that you would need it).

[Curare]

I'll leave it for the time being, but ultimately this hood will go.

While it works, and all, I've never really been happy with the PC lighting that you can fit into something like this, as you can see from the photo, there is a big corner of the tank that won't really receive any light due to the bayonet and ballast being there.

I'm considering my options for better coverage, and will do something more outlandish in time,but at the moment, I'm just itching to get this thing up and running.

[aquaphish]

Why don't you just use a real reflector? I have an extra one that I gutted from my canopy when I replaced it with a set up from AHSUPPLY. PM me and I will send you a pic. If you want it let make a deal. It will be far better than Aluminum Foil.

BTW is it Reynolds Aluminum Foil or the store brand???

[Curare]

Actually it's neither.

It's industrial stuff made by OneSteel here in australia. It's a lot thicker than the usuall crappy aluminum foil. And is a hell of a lot shinier.

[aquaphish]

Looking at your test pictures it seems to me that the factory finish is the best.

[Momotaro]

I have to agree, the factory finished reflector does appear to be the best.

Mike

[jhoetzl]

Yes...and here is a visual of why you think the factory finish is the best.
Histograms are a decent way of demonstrating this...

the screen before the light was switched on.


exposed lamp (no reflector)


existing (factory finish) reflector (smoother slopes on the left and right)


White screen (paper)


Polished aluminium foil