plasma lighting

Discussion in 'Metal Halide Aquarium Lighting' started by Dingo, Aug 18, 2012.

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  1. Gresham

    Gresham Great Blue Whale

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    Its been available for a couple years... not sure what you all are talking about :)

    I know someone that has been running them for a couple years, granted he did jump in buy purchasing beta versions.
     
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  3. gcarroll

    gcarroll Zoanthid

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    Yeah, I was thinking the same thing!
     
  4. Dingo

    Dingo Giant Squid

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    Sorry LED but when you can supply a spectral output that is actually full spectrum then you will maybe compete.
     
  5. Dingo

    Dingo Giant Squid

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    Yes I am aware of this... Jetersix has a set of plasmas. However it is not available main stream hobbiest level and I would really like to see this
     
  6. Reef Breeders

    Reef Breeders 3reef Sponsor

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    What are you talking about? LEDs come in TONS of different spectrums, so that is not a problem. Just because the whole thing is not in a single diode, doesnt mean that the spectrum cannot be achieved. As it stands now, plasma is ahead. In 6 months? Maybe. A year? Likely not. Tech moves fast, and if it had 2 years to adapt, but didn't plasma will likely fall short. I would love to see a new technology be successful, but there is other tech that will be better.
     
  7. Mr. Bill

    Mr. Bill Native Floridian

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    My thoughts, exactly. Nothing beats good ol' T5HO with the right ATI bulbs. :D
     
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  9. jpfishfan09

    jpfishfan09 Plankton

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    It comes to the age old question...which is the best light?!
     
  10. Gresham

    Gresham Great Blue Whale

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    Anyone can call up and get them, so not sure about what you are talking about. Sure, they are not distributed by every dealer, but neither was MH for many many years, yet MH was common place for SPS reefers.
     
  11. ingtar_shinowa

    ingtar_shinowa Giant Squid

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    Nice can you get him to sign a jersey for me? He is my favorite.
     
  12. m2434

    m2434 Giant Squid

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    A lot of white LEDs use the same phosphor coatings as T-5s and have similar spectral outputs. All this garbage about LEDs not being "full spectrum" needs to be taken into perspective when comparing to other sources. Generally the halides T-5s etc.. necessarily don't have much wider ranges (they may, but I doubt many reefers are using these, as they would be quite yellow). People like their aquariums to look like a blue windex bottle and like their corals to glow pretty colors. To do that, you naturally need to limit the spectrum, whether LED, T-5, Metal Halide etc... So, in most cases, we are not using "full spectrum" sources regardless.

    Now for plasma, it looks cool, but again, they still seem to have the same issues they had a year or so ago when we last discussed. Besides being expensive (for now), they are super yellow when run at their most efficient setting. The bluer you run them, the less efficient they become and the more peaked the spectral response becomes. This is sort of a natural issue with any lighting really. Our eyes see green/yellow so much better than blue, actually, our eyes are about 20 times more sensitive to yellow/green than deep blue, so, in order to get a light to look blue and not be washed out by any yellow/green, we need to really limit the spectral response of the light. I think plasma is going to have the same issue. I mean, yeah, if you take a 5500K Halide, it is pretty flipping full spectrum, but who the heck would want it on their aquarium?

    And Greshem, speaking of lumens, why are we talking about this in an aquarium thread? Your a scientist, you should know better :p It seems no one on these forums ever learned about basic weighted averages in high school, but I assume you must have. So, go download the weights for a photopic luminosity function, then download some PAR data for various light sources and multiply out the weighted averages. Then, remembering this this information and understanding why lumens are so innacurate, never speak such gibberish on here again ;D
     
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