Lighting technologies for reef aquarium have come a long way since I first started in the hobby about 20 years ago. Back then there were very few choices and 4300K to 5500K metal halide lamps and normal 40W fluorescent lamps were the standard choices.…
Recently Marine Depot (www.marinedepot.com) introduced a new line of AquaMaxx 14000K lamps. The lamps are available in 400W, 250W and 175W mogul versions, as well as 250W and 150W double-ended versions.…
Recently the choice of electronic ballasts available to the reef hobbiest has increased beyond the earlier choices of Icecap, EVC, Reef Fanatic, and Blueline electronic ballasts. This article reviews the new series of electronic ballasts recently introduced by Lumatek, Sunlight Supply – Galaxy Electronic Ballasts, and Proline’s Vertex electronic ballasts.…
Since the last set of reflector tests a few more new reflectors have been introduced in the market. These new reflectors all carry the “Lumen” name – Lumenbrite, Lumenmax Elite, Lumenmax, similar to their predecessor the Lumenarc III, even though they are manufactured and marketed by different companies.…
Over the last year, I have continued to test the metal halide lamps, for their performance and spectral output. This article presents the last of the 400W mogul lamps tested. Table 1 shows the complete list of the 400W Mogul lamps and ballast combinations tested.…
This article reviews the last of the 150W double ended metal halide lamps tested for their performance and spectral output. Table 1, provides a complete listing of the lamps and ballast combinations test.…
In my earlier articles [1,2], I evaluated data on used metal halide (MH) lamps in an effort to get a better understanding of how lamps age over time, with an intent to help the aquarists answer the question – How often should metal halide lamps be changed ?…
Every reef aquarist has observed that corals in the aquarium look the most colorful and vivid when viewed looking down into the tank from the top of the aquarium. Often this view is obscured by the rippling surface of the water and reflections of the light from the water surface, making it difficult to view from the top.…
This article presents an analysis of the Aquarmckzo and Catalina metal halide lamps. The lamps tested along with the ballasts used are shown in Table 1 below. The Aquarmckzo lamps were sent to me by a reefs.org…
This article presents the spectral analysis of the six lamps and their corresponding ballasts as listed in Table 1. These lamps were tested using the identical setup to all my previous tests, thus allowing for direct comparison between the lamps.…