Iam confused..(lighting)

[agreeive?fish]

ok iam confused here (it dont take much to confuse me).. when your comparing light fixtures and refering to power compacts when the bulb is 10 watt and it says it puts out the light of an 50 watt incondecent light..do you have 50 watts of light or do you have 10 watts of light for figuring total light wattage per gallon?????

 

[HaywoodJafragit]

10 watts because typical aquarium lights are fluorescent, but that's only power consumption, not intensity. Typical housould compact fluorescent can generate more light than an incandescent bulb with the same amount of power, so in your example, the CF bulb can generate 5 times more light than the same 10 watt incandescent equivalent, that's all.

This gets a lot more complicated because it really depends on the kind of bulb, T8s, T12s and T5s have different properties being all fluorescent; the most accurate way to measure light inside the tank is by using a PAR meter, the "watts per gallon" measure is totally deceiving, you can measure light inside your tank by sticking your finger in the water and have similar scientific background.

 

[seapug]

Always refer to the power consumed, the type of fixture it is, and the color temp of the bulb it contains, not something else else it's equal to. That will allow people to understand the kind of light you use.

So instead of saying "I have a 150 Watt light," you say "I have a 150W Metal Halide fixture with a double ended 14K Phoenix bulb." You can even get into ballast type, brand, etc., but the type of light, watts, and bulb type is usually enough to give people a clear idea of what you are talking about.