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All valid points. For me I want to run my fuge light for 12 hours so a high intensity light like the h380 is way overkill. If it were a FW tank with that light, I’d only run it a few hours a day.
In terms of ROI, I have had to have amazon replace one taotronics bulb that died but they stood behind it. It has 3k reviews which made me pretty comfortable with the purchase. I’ll need to go through ten of these bulbs before buying two h80s would have been the better bet.
If the h380 could be dimmed I’d go back to that in a second. All that being said, I’m pretty sure Triton recommends t5s for the fuge which opens a whole other conversation on this.
I think the ACKE is a few watts less than the H80 (12-watts vs 15-watts)... not that 3-watts is worth $100, however the spectrum graphs are not identical. Carrying over experience from freshwater planted tanks, superfluous spectrums can lead to unintended consequences and undesirable algae growth. Not saying the ACKE will do that, but there is something to be said for quality of light over quantity.
Will you be doing a side by side between the UFO and H380? Interested to see what you find.
M
I only used my seneye to measure the spectrum, not exactly a scientific level instrument but for this it’s good enough, spectrums were close enough that I thought it was ok.
I’m trying to grow algae in a sump to absorb nutrients and prevent it from growing in the display. The fact that the spectrum is slightly off and might grow a small amount of another type of algae is ok with me.
Not specific to you Want2BS8ed just my overall thoughts to people who say “Home Depot” lights with a reflector grow cheato just fine.
I’m not looking for “fine” I’m trying to use macroalgea as my primary nutrient export method. I think it’s worth investing in or looking at other options. Maybe not the high price of Kessils but there are other options.
I only used my seneye to measure the spectrum, not exactly a scientific level instrument but for this it’s good enough, spectrums were close enough that I thought it was ok.
I’m trying to grow algae in a sump to absorb nutrients and prevent it from growing in the display. The fact that the spectrum is slightly off and might grow a small amount of another type of algae is ok with me.
Not specific to you Want2BS8ed just my overall thoughts to people who say “Home Depot” lights with a reflector grow cheato just fine.
I’m not looking for “fine” I’m trying to use macroalgea as my primary nutrient export method. I think it’s worth investing in or looking at other options. Maybe not the high price of Kessils but there are other options.
You can provide so much light that you'll strip everything out of the water and starve the plants in this nutrient depleted environment. From the planted tank world, when you provide lights like we use you have to dose fertilizer and tons of trace elements to keep up. When you run lower light or light for less hours, you don't have to dose as much. My kids each have a dirt bottom tank in their rooms that haven't seen a water change in years. We also don't dose but the trade off is we don't have explosive growth. We provide little light and we get little growth. The nutrients are nill in each tank and come from fish waste and the breakdown of food. Diana Walstad has a great book on this. I believe its called the "Ecology of the Planted Aquarium" or something like that. It's also called the Natural method and its similar to what we're trying to do here in our fuges as the plants are the sole nutrient export in a planted tank. Water changes are never done, ever.
Full spectrum T-5 Razor
Received the Growstar 300 yesterday. This thing is a beast! Since this light is over twice the power as the last one, I have cut the time the light is on back to three hours per day. Slow increases every other day to acclimate the algae is what I am thinking. Is that what you have done?Before trimming on Feb 24th
After trimming on Feb 24th
Today March 3rd
The Growstar is absolutely a great light for a fuge without having to spend hundreds on a kessil.
There is just no doubt about it!