Anyone have their halides on a rail or mover?

[liquid]

I'm wondering if anyone has their halides on a hydroponic light rail / light mover. I was looking thru Hydrofarm's website today and happened to see this option:

http://www.hydrofarm.com/content/growlights.html

(it's at the very bottom of the page)

And I was thinking that this would be a very good way to get a more even distribution of light to the corals so that a person does not have unidirectional growth of corals to a stationary light source. This would also end up being much more energy efficient than running multi-halides on a large tank.

Anyone doing this now and if so, do you have any pictures of it? I seem to remember someone saying that they were running them but I couldn't find the thread after doing some forum searches...

Thanks!

liquid

 

[Gatortailale1]

IMO that would take away from my viewing pleasure. I personally don't like idea of having light moving back and forth. What happens if machine goes wild and crawls off the track and drops in tank. -- Fried fish/ clam roast.

Just MO

 

[Anonymous]

I've thought of this- seems like a good idea, but not tried it yet.

Gator, the light would move slowly over the course of the day so you probably wouldn't be too conscious of it...

 

[liquid]

Yes, the light takes a long time to travel 6 linear feet. The website lists that it takes 20 minutes to go 6 feet of distance. To me it sounds intriguing for someone with a 4' tank or a 6' tank. On a 4' tank you could run a single 250 or 400 watt halide on a rail and on a 6' tank someone could run 2 halides on a rail. It'd be a way to save some electricity, etc. If I could find one of these on sale somewhere (maybe from a DEA bust?) I would grab it to try...

liquid

 

[mosey]

i am thinking about the lightrail too
i was going to use a timer to control the motor to maybe stretch the travel time to
4 hrs. so i can use (2) 400 watt 20K lamps
in one pendant.

 

[Gatortailale1]

Guess on 2nd thought if its that slow it could be ok. Might confuse fish at first thinking sun is going down and it comes back up. (how sun tracks along horizon)

Still not 4 me

 

[smokin reefer]

My LFS here in bowling green has this set up on one of his prop. tanks. He just uses it to keep from running more lights.

 

[kjb]

I would think there might be a way to run a 24 hour cycle, thus starting out at the same side of the tank each morning and ending on the opposing side by 'night'. Just a matter of electronics.
I have been thinking about this since I still need to build a hood for my 36" long tank and the pendant system I have now. I was thinking of supplementing the 250W HQI MH hanging over the center [from front to back] with a VHO bulb nearer the front. That would give light throughout, shine in from the front of the rockwork so I could see things better and with the MH I would have a high intensity area that moved across the tank.
Whaddayathink?
I just need to afford the project, hehe!

 

[davelin315]

A hydroponics store near me used to carry adjustable cycle tracks, now they are all 20-30 minute cycles. They told me that the items were not popular when they took the whole day to travel across, and so most manufacturers have stopped making them. It's too bad, because it would be an excellent way to simulate nature in our tanks to use a track that would go across your tank. If they still had the right tracks, you could buy one large bulb and just hang the socket from the track and build your reflector across it to angle towards the tank. A 12 hour cycle would allow coral growth from all angles instead of directly overhead. However, I think a 20-30 minute pass would be very odd for your corals, and I don't know that it would promote healthy growth, as you would constantly be shading your coral on one side or the other, causing it to retract and extend its polyps on almost a constant basis.

 

[Carpentersreef]

lightmovingrails

Here is another link for other systems. I like the idea, but I think it'll only be useful for single pendants. I've got a lighting unit with 3 x 250 HQI, and I don't think it'll work with a light rail. What I would like would be a single 1000w mh with a controller that could simulate random cloudiness and incorporate a nightlight, as well. (for my system, anyways)

Mitch

Or maybe I could just insulate a back porch and use the natural sunlight/moonlight.