sfsuphysics
Supporting Member
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.
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.