When I started researching what lighting I was going to use, I ran accross the idea of bulbs "shifting spectrum". No matter where I looked, I could not find any real data on how fast a t5 bulb shifts its spectrum. All I could find was anecdotal evidence that supported both sides of the camp. On one hand we have some seriously succesfull t5 users*cough* Iwan *cough* who recomend changing bulbs every 6-8 months. On the other hand we have people who have corals that are doing fine under 12month+ t5's.
The only way to solve this for sure was to do spectral readings on the bulbs as they age. Keep in mind I am no scientist, just a dude with a fish tank. Thankfully my roomate is going to school for a science related career so I talked him about my quandry with the flouro spectral shifts. He just happens to do lab work in one of the labs at the local University that has a spectrometer. After explaining our idea for the experiment to the professor, we got permission to run the tests.
The tests were all run on brand new bulbs. I am using a brand new 36inch aquactinics fixture. An initial spectral reading was taken to block out any background light. The readings were takin once the intensity leveled off. This seemed to happen after about a minute. I wanted to leave them running for longer before taking the reading, but we had some techinical difficulties in the beginning and the building was about to close, so we had to make some compromises. If you ahve any questions about the techincal aspect of the testing let me know, Ill pass them on to my roomate.
This is my first attempt at making graphs from data in excel so if you have any suggestions let me know.
My original spectra:
*Note that UVL hasnt published their spectra yet, so those are new info.
I noticed a difference in relative intensity between the published ATI bulbs, and what I got. Next time I will run the bulbs longer to see if that relative intensity changes at all.
I will take more readings once the bulbs have finished their 100 hour burn in which is next Monday. After that, I will take readings once a month and post them here. Unfortunetly my access to the spectrometer will run out in 9 months. Im hoping to have some meaningfull data by then. Im also going to see waht I can do about getting some older t5's to test. Even better would be if I could get some used overdriven bulbs as well.
Peace all
The only way to solve this for sure was to do spectral readings on the bulbs as they age. Keep in mind I am no scientist, just a dude with a fish tank. Thankfully my roomate is going to school for a science related career so I talked him about my quandry with the flouro spectral shifts. He just happens to do lab work in one of the labs at the local University that has a spectrometer. After explaining our idea for the experiment to the professor, we got permission to run the tests.
The tests were all run on brand new bulbs. I am using a brand new 36inch aquactinics fixture. An initial spectral reading was taken to block out any background light. The readings were takin once the intensity leveled off. This seemed to happen after about a minute. I wanted to leave them running for longer before taking the reading, but we had some techinical difficulties in the beginning and the building was about to close, so we had to make some compromises. If you ahve any questions about the techincal aspect of the testing let me know, Ill pass them on to my roomate.
This is my first attempt at making graphs from data in excel so if you have any suggestions let me know.
My original spectra:
*Note that UVL hasnt published their spectra yet, so those are new info.
I noticed a difference in relative intensity between the published ATI bulbs, and what I got. Next time I will run the bulbs longer to see if that relative intensity changes at all.
I will take more readings once the bulbs have finished their 100 hour burn in which is next Monday. After that, I will take readings once a month and post them here. Unfortunetly my access to the spectrometer will run out in 9 months. Im hoping to have some meaningfull data by then. Im also going to see waht I can do about getting some older t5's to test. Even better would be if I could get some used overdriven bulbs as well.
Peace all
