Steve Tyree's chat the other night

[StirCrazy]

Originally posted by DJ88:
The thing is if you were to read Sanjay's article you will notice that the 150W HQI's were mearured with a reflector where all the others weren't. Most people seem to skip by this point.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You are right, but the people that don't miss it tend to blow it out of proportion also, if you add in the amount a really nice reflector would increase the 400 watt Iwasaki the test shows that it will beat the 150 watt AB DE bulb, but the Ab bulb will still lay waist to any 250 watt bulb out there :D but, this is not the important thing. the fact is that a 150 watt AB DE bulbs seams to provide Iwasaki power with a 10000K color and that its effectiveness is some where between a 250 and a 400.

Delphinus stated that PAR isn't everything, well he is right but what else exactly is needed is all speculation, some say it is intensity where others say high intensity over a certain level is a waist of energy as the corals can only use so much. Others say UV (in a controlled amount) is what gives the corals there colors... again no proof. if you look at the so called blue/violet bulbs sure you are getting the intensity of a MH bulb and at 400 watts that is a lot of punch, but you are also getting a increase in UV also, So if you take a 400 watt radium for example, is it the blue color, the violet color, the pure intensity or the increase in UV that is coloring up the corals. I don't know the answer to this and as far as I know unless the big guys are keeping secrets neither do they

Steve