Help, they are laughing at me Anthony :)
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Anthony Calfo
New member
yep... I used a close up picture to show the "thick" versus "thin" sides of the partitions which are used to spread or focus the light as you need/see fit.
Turn off your room light sand leave only the tank light on... then flip a sheet of egg-grate back and forth. You will see the difference in light spread (vis a vis light shed/wasted on floor out of/in front of the tank... versus not at all when all is focussed down/in.)
Turn off your room light sand leave only the tank light on... then flip a sheet of egg-grate back and forth. You will see the difference in light spread (vis a vis light shed/wasted on floor out of/in front of the tank... versus not at all when all is focussed down/in.)
Steven Pro
New member
I believe it was Dana Riddle that first suggested this at the 2nd Louisville MACNA. You might be able to find more information using a search engine with his name and eggcrate.
Anthony Calfo
New member
Jamesurq... if you will take a look yourself (light meter aside even)... can you explain where the 9, 12 or even 16" of light spilled onto the floor in front of the aquarium is going when you add a focus-side sheet of egg-grate over your... say, 18" wide aquarium? Its... er... getting redirected somewhere 
And yes... Dana was one of the folks that took the time to do proper measurements.
to All/at large - rather than be skeptical folks... do spend $9 on a sheet of egg-grate for your multi-thousand dollar reef systems and see for yourself. I promise its worth it.
C'mon... put the crow bar in your wallet, or just bid lower on your next designer label coral frag
You'll get far more mileage/benefit out of the lighting tip than the coral frag anyways.
Anth-
And yes... Dana was one of the folks that took the time to do proper measurements.
to All/at large - rather than be skeptical folks... do spend $9 on a sheet of egg-grate for your multi-thousand dollar reef systems and see for yourself. I promise its worth it.
C'mon... put the crow bar in your wallet, or just bid lower on your next designer label coral frag
You'll get far more mileage/benefit out of the lighting tip than the coral frag anyways.Anth-
Jamesurq
New member
Anthony Calfo said:Jamesurq... if you will take a look yourself (light meter aside even)... can you explain where the 9, 12 or even 16" of light spilled onto the floor in front of the aquarium is going when you add a focus-side sheet of egg-grate over your... say, 18" wide aquarium? Its... er... getting redirected somewhere
Redirected, yes - dispursed, yes... But increased output of 20%? It's making the light spread larger (or smaller if you flip it) but it's not multiplying the overall power of the bulbs is it?
How is that possible?
Anthony Calfo
New member
test it yourself or dig for the data James... I did.
Make us proud... or at least let's stop waxing philosophically/bantering
Make us proud... or at least let's stop waxing philosophically/bantering
Daemonfly
New member
Guess I'll test it out as well. Got a cheap, yet somewhat popular LUX meter at home.
Only thing I was considering is that the eggcrate would block some of the light from getting into the tank. Would it's redirection of light still be beneficial vs any light blocked? Guess I'll have to test to find out.
Only thing I was considering is that the eggcrate would block some of the light from getting into the tank. Would it's redirection of light still be beneficial vs any light blocked? Guess I'll have to test to find out.
Jamesurq
New member
Ok - I'll stop waxing philosphically... How about I point you to some links:
http://www.paralite.net/plastic_louvers.htm
Indicates a 75% light transmission from plastic eggcrates - ie: 25% loss of light.
Here's an interesting one - it talks about parabolic louvers - the eggcrate's bigger brother:
http://www.eclipselightinginc.com/pdf/Parabol.pdf
Look at lumens across all angles in LSI test 18705 and 18706 and LSI 18746 and 47 respectively which are the same bulb but with a specular parabolic louver and without...
I'm not an expert by any means - in fact I know very little aside from what I just read for a half hour or so. But in my 30 minutes of digging I couldn't find ONE "eggcrate" manufacturer that stated that their products increased light output. It seems to me that they'd be jumping up and down to say that... What they were saying was that it dispurses the light more evenly and the effective light at the wider angles from the bulb is more... But not that the output of the fixture itself is increased. I suppose if you were running flouresent bulbs with no canopy, the light that would have been reflected onto the floor, would potentially be pushed straight down into the tank - but I'm not sure I know of anyone that runs that way... Basically, I would think that the 25% loss that you took from the shading caused by the eggcrate would far outweigh any potential benefits of a slightly more focused beam... But I could be completely wrong.
Sorry if this get's on your case Anthony.>> I guess your "make us proud" comment or potentially your plea for me to stop bantering incited me to stop in and do some digging. My sources aren't exactly scientific papers, but google felt they were important
For what it's worth - I did go out and put a piece of eggcrate under a double NO fixture just now and visually I noticed LESS light coming through. But then again - my eyes are not light meters...
Hope you take this the right way - I've just never been the type to take something that to me sounds a little hard to swallow and believe it.
After doing some additional reading - lots of it.. and doing a couple visual experiments (albeit very late at night) I have a tough time agreeing with you.
Is that okay?
Sorry man.
http://www.paralite.net/plastic_louvers.htm
Indicates a 75% light transmission from plastic eggcrates - ie: 25% loss of light.
Here's an interesting one - it talks about parabolic louvers - the eggcrate's bigger brother:
http://www.eclipselightinginc.com/pdf/Parabol.pdf
Look at lumens across all angles in LSI test 18705 and 18706 and LSI 18746 and 47 respectively which are the same bulb but with a specular parabolic louver and without...
I'm not an expert by any means - in fact I know very little aside from what I just read for a half hour or so. But in my 30 minutes of digging I couldn't find ONE "eggcrate" manufacturer that stated that their products increased light output. It seems to me that they'd be jumping up and down to say that... What they were saying was that it dispurses the light more evenly and the effective light at the wider angles from the bulb is more... But not that the output of the fixture itself is increased. I suppose if you were running flouresent bulbs with no canopy, the light that would have been reflected onto the floor, would potentially be pushed straight down into the tank - but I'm not sure I know of anyone that runs that way... Basically, I would think that the 25% loss that you took from the shading caused by the eggcrate would far outweigh any potential benefits of a slightly more focused beam... But I could be completely wrong.
Sorry if this get's on your case Anthony.>> I guess your "make us proud" comment or potentially your plea for me to stop bantering incited me to stop in and do some digging. My sources aren't exactly scientific papers, but google felt they were important
For what it's worth - I did go out and put a piece of eggcrate under a double NO fixture just now and visually I noticed LESS light coming through. But then again - my eyes are not light meters...
Hope you take this the right way - I've just never been the type to take something that to me sounds a little hard to swallow and believe it.
After doing some additional reading - lots of it.. and doing a couple visual experiments (albeit very late at night
) I have a tough time agreeing with you.Is that okay?
Sorry man.
PUGroyale
New member
Anthony Calfo said:to All/at large - rather than be skeptical folks... do spend $9 on a sheet of egg-grate for your multi-thousand dollar reef systems and see for yourself. I promise its worth it.
C'mon... put the crow bar in your wallet, or just bid lower on your next designer label coral frag
Anth-
Considering placing anything between the lights and the tank [with the exception of prism maybe] could only act as an impediment... I find your comments not only unnecessarily glib, but also embarassingly incorrect.
Steven Pro
New member
James, the difference I can see in the data you present is the manufacturers are talking about lighting a room. Of course you won't see an increase in light intensity there. The room is far too large, But, if you take light that would have been scattered all over a room and focus it into a small area (say an aquarium), then you will see a localize increase in light intensity while the rest of the room will now appear darker. This is the exact same theory we see everyday in reflectors. Good ones (like Diamond Lumenarc for example) can increase the effective amount of light going into the tank dramatically over lesser reflectors.
Jamesurq
New member
Lumenarc reflectors take the light that would have been pushed up and to the sides and force that light down - they wrap around the back side of the bulb. I understand your comparison though - and I definitely understand the concept that Anthony is putting across - I just happen to think that although you potentially take a small portion of the light that could have spilled out through the front glass and direct it into the tank, your overall loss of approximately 25% of the output of the lighting right from the start outweighs that.
I could be wrong...
I could be wrong...
Anthony Calfo
New member
I e-mailed Dane (Ridle) at his lab... he just flew back home from a long trip but will dig for his data shortly he says. I'll post promptly when so.
The gist of the issue here is that the (improved) focus of light by the egg-grate offsets the (minimal) loss off light blocked by its thin profile.
Put another way... the loss of light from (typical) spread is reduced significantly by the use of a focussing grid ala egg-grate.
Indeed... I have the same perspective as Steve here, too, regarding the above listed sites/info:
The only thing that matters re: this topic is the light making it into the aquarium. And if you'd take a light meter... ahem
James... very good to see you dig for the data. Obviously, it chides me when clearly intelligent people rest easy and play armchair QB or seem to want to be enabled.
To be clear though... I did not think you were so much of either... rather, I thought (seeing other posts by you) that you were at least occasioanlly a troll (see BB lingo/dictionary for def if needed). Its a style of message board participation that I do not have very high regard for. Just my opinion... I could be wrong.
The gist of the issue here is that the (improved) focus of light by the egg-grate offsets the (minimal) loss off light blocked by its thin profile.
Put another way... the loss of light from (typical) spread is reduced significantly by the use of a focussing grid ala egg-grate.
Indeed... I have the same perspective as Steve here, too, regarding the above listed sites/info:
The only thing that matters re: this topic is the light making it into the aquarium. And if you'd take a light meter... ahem
James... very good to see you dig for the data. Obviously, it chides me when clearly intelligent people rest easy and play armchair QB or seem to want to be enabled.
To be clear though... I did not think you were so much of either... rather, I thought (seeing other posts by you) that you were at least occasioanlly a troll (see BB lingo/dictionary for def if needed). Its a style of message board participation that I do not have very high regard for. Just my opinion... I could be wrong.
