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Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 9/11/2006 6:43:41 PM
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| Anthony, I'm not sure if you would know the answer but it seems that quite a few aquaculture facilities that have coral farms use 20K bulbs over thier tanks. Do you know the reasoning behind the use of 20k bulbs? I have always heard that spectrums closer to natural sunlight like 6500k-10000k provide better growth and color, so why do these facilities choose 20k?
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Group: Moderators
Last Login: 11/19/2009 1:09:50 PM
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I have yet to see a single aquarculture facility that is not suffering severe loss of profits for the errant use of artificial lights (versus natural sunlight). Most such facilities are less than 5 years old, claim to be profiting yet have never made a business plan let alone revisited it  They can tell you neither their cycle of harvest for any given species nor their bottom line each month. In short... they have never "crunched their numbers." If they had, they'd unplug the lamps Some facilities that have been around for more than 5 years and are using artifical lights have the same excuses/explanations for why they did not change or go under... they had a restructuring of the business (usually infusion of monies from outside investor, taking on a partner, etc) that keeps them alive and bragging.I would never recommend artificial lights for any coral farm that aims to make optimal profits. And even if/when so... I sure as heck would never recommend a bulb such as 20k K that "wastes" so much of its' spectral range on the blue end of the spectrum at the expense of PAR and growth stimulating daylight spectra.
. Anthony Calfo
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Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 6/15/2009 10:00:48 PM
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| Alot of those places u see claiming to be coral farms are simple chop shops. they buy a wild coral, chop it into 10 pieces and sell it as aquacultured. the 20k lights are just to make it look better in the picture.
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Group: Moderators
Last Login: 11/19/2009 1:09:50 PM
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| sadly true my friend... almost without exception they are all chop shops. For all my travels (50-100K miles by air per year for many years) I am hard pressed to name any facility besides Dick Perrin's "Tropicorium" that actually keeps broodstock for many/most of the inventory and harvests frags from multi-generation established donors. There is a good bit of small scale (cottage industry) activity among individual aquarists that have select species in their basements from which they have been fragging for years. But they are the exception. 20k K blue MHs are used to tweak color... usually to get more green FPs (fluorescing proteins)... see my article on "Fluorescence" in my articles list under "Fav links..." for more on this subject and FPs.
. Anthony Calfo
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