Jestersix

DE reflectors, anyone have an opinion?

I've heard a few people say they don't like DE bulbs, lumenarc (max or mini) with a SE rocks and ordinarily I'd probably agree.

However my stony tank, is only 18" wide, it's acrylic too which means that the physical opening is rather small (if I had to guess, I'd say 11" or so front to back (wide is fine). Now I'm really not digging leaving my MH bulbs on for 9-10 hours a day (I forgot what I changed them to), as reefs don't have that peak brightness for that long, I'd really like to throw in some T5 blue-plus bulbs or something as an additional light source to suppliment the MH (not for color but for total time on). Unfortunately with my lumenarc mini + bracing around the whole tank there is no room for this, Sure I could squeeze one in and then it'll be shining through part of the brace that has salt creep on it so hardly any light would get through (i.e. it'd be useless).

So my idea is to go with DE pendants (not lumenarc size more of the size you see in retros where they're longer than they're wide) because they seem to have fine length as far as light dispersion, but the width would be dramatically shortened, I'd even go so far as to say the intensity would increase because the light cone is shrunk. So my question is are DE setups really that inferior to SE setups? Because as it stands I'm probably wasting a ton of light that's not getting to my corals.

Ok just food for thought.
 
Are you referring to "Hot spot" vs Dispersed light? If so yeah I can see that, but I really don't want to light up the seams of my acrylic tank because 20% of the light isn't even going into the tank.

Bottom line is lumenarcs are too damn big for my skinny ass tank, the minis would be perfect if I had a nice rimless jobber (or glass with center brace perhaps) however I don't. Plus I'd really like to cut down the hours, and do that by tossing in t5s.
 
[quote author=sfsuphysics link=topic=4248.msg51085#msg51085 date=1217969057]
Are you referring to "Hot spot" vs Dispersed light? If so yeah I can see that, but I really don't want to light up the seams of my acrylic tank because 20% of the light isn't even going into the tank.



[/quote]

No silly I was talking about ALL of the factors Dan was talking about, and his obvious frustration that he had to build a DE Lumenarc in the first place.

BTW, I do have a PFO DE reflector that is beginning to collect dust......
 
Oh, sorry Dan's talk was too long ago for me to remember the whole of his talk, guess he didn't like DE bulbs very much :D

Are you needing to clean your junk a bit are you?? :D
 
[quote author=tuberider link=topic=4248.msg51094#msg51094 date=1217974834]
...
BTW, I do have a PFO DE reflector that is beginning to collect dust......
[/quote]

how much are letting it go for?? ;) 150W or 250W?
 
[quote author=Elite link=topic=4248.msg51109#msg51109 date=1217980192]
[quote author=tuberider link=topic=4248.msg51094#msg51094 date=1217974834]
...
BTW, I do have a PFO DE reflector that is beginning to collect dust......
[/quote]150w, I'd need to dig up my receipt to see how much $$$. I got it for pretty cheap.

how much are letting it go for?? ;) 150W or 250W?
[/quote]
 
I had used de pendents both sls and pfo with great success as have many others Jesus,gcarrol to name a couple. I think with your tank footprint it would be the way to go. I am also a big fan of supplemental lighting I have always like vhos but my new set will be t5 because that's all they make it combo lights.
 
I've got two lumenarc mini's on my 58gallon. It's what fit the best for single reflectors. The Mini's are 12x13" I swapped out the original sockets for 150 watters so they use less electricity.

My only problem with DE vs SE is bulb choice. There's a LOT more choices if you go SE.
 
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