Quote:
Originally Posted by StirCrazy
A lot of people seam to think that you will get a benifit of reflected light, the actual usable light that is reflected is not a significant amount. take into concideration on a smooth reflective surface the light is reflected at the incident angle of what it is recived, so 90% of refleced light will hit the bottom a few inches from the glass and closer. also glass is not a 100% reflective surface by any means its transmittance can be between 85 to 95% for common glass so that means 85 to 95% of the light passes right through the glass to start with, the remaining 5 to 15% is reflected. plus the light that is reflected travels a greator distance through the water so its intensity is dropped also.
so don't clean your glass just because you think you are going to get more light.
now if you made the back of the tank out of a highly reflective material with a very low transmittance it might be a differant story, but I don't know anyone making tank backs out of spectral aluminum 
Steve |
Ok Steve let me rephrase that the tank is alot brighter from the dull coraline to the bright light blue color that the tank is painted..
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180 starfire front, LPS, millipora
Doesn't matter how much you have been reading until you take the plunge.
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