Just a thought, but when I put my lamps in the perpendicular orientation, I made it so that the tips faced back instead of front, so that I wouldn't get blinded too too badly when I would go to feed the fish and so on.
As for orientation it generally depends on the reflector and the shape of the tank. For the ones that are recommended to go perpendicular, it is usually because the shape of the light cast is longer in one dimension than the other, and the shapes of most tanks is that they are longer and higher than they are deep ("deep" in this case referring to the front-to-back dimension). Thus, in a cube tank, say, it wouldn't much matter since the depth is the same as the width, so it would be six-of-one/half-dozen-of-the-other. Another consideration is that if you wanted to have actinics, it's usually easier to shoehorn everything in if it's all parallel.
Anyhow for a 48x18 footprint and Spiderlight reflectors, and no concerns about fitting the supplemental actinic (if wanted), then I would go perpendicular. (I notice in your drawing that the fluorescent tubes fit on the side anyhow.)
BTW what software did you use for those drawings? That's way cool!
__________________
-- Tony
My next hobby will be flooding my basement while repeatedly banging my head against a brick wall and tearing up $100 bills. Whee!
Last edited by Delphinus; 06-14-2006 at 05:49 PM.
|