More Lighting Talk

[Troy F]

For those of you who've read Sanjay Joshi's article in the Marine Fish and Reef 2002 Annual, what were your thoughts? One thing that stood out for me was the following exerpt: An Iwasaki 6500K lamp at a distance of 6 inches from the water can provide a PPDF close to 1600 uE/s*m2 without a reflector. Using a reflector, this value can be easily increased by another 50 to 75 percent (depending on the quality of reflector design). Surface values on reefs have been measured around 2000 uE/s*m2.

To me this reads that it is possible to out perform the sun. Could any of you lighting experts simplify, qualify or explain the above paragraph?

Another very interesting bit of information provided was how poorly most of the 10000K lamps perform compared to other equal watt lamps. Hopefully these comparisons won't drive the price of Iwasaki up but on the other hand maybe they'll drive the price on the other bulbs down.

Thoughts?