Lighting

[bobzarry]

I run the 18x18x18 exos I use these to light them. Amazon.com: Lights of America 9266 Outdoor Fixture: Home Improvement
My tanks stay around 78 all day with humidity in the 90's. I always keep my AC on during the warm months with the room at about 75-76. I keep the lights about 3 inches off the top with no fan. I am sure I could knock it down a couple of degree if I ran a fan but I am comfortable with tincs at 78.

[Brotherly Monkey]

Originally Posted by bobzarry

I run the 18x18x18 exos I use these to light them. Amazon.com: Lights of America 9266 Outdoor Fixture: Home Improvement
My tanks stay around 78 all day with humidity in the 90's. I always keep my AC on during the warm months with the room at about 75-76. I keep the lights about 3 inches off the top with no fan. I am sure I could knock it down a couple of degree if I ran a fan but I am comfortable with tincs at 78.

I'm using some t-5's that I had sitting around, but can maintain proper temps if I only use 1 fixture, it was the addition of the second on that was causing the heat problems. Without it, the temps stay fine, but some of the plants I wanted to try in the viv , I doubt will flower, or at least do so well.

[bobzarry]

Don't mean to hijack this thread, but these lights are very high output. If you get a chance you may want to try them out. They are not the prettiest fixures around but sure do work great especially for the price. Also... they come with no plug so you have to wire a plug onto them. I just get mine as extension cords at the dollar store.

[james67]

not necessarily true. there are ways (albeit not what anyone here will likley do) to keep ALL heat from lighting out of the tank while minimally affecting light intensity.

usually this requires a space between an enclosed light and the tank with lage amounts of cool air being constantly passed across the light.

james

[tgregoire]

Thanks for all the info guys. Im going to build a fixture using 2 or 3 bulbs depending on what i can find for wattage with the correct k rating and im thinking 2-4 computer fans to cool it. I will post pics when i get started. What do you run for a k rating in those outdoor fixtures? And can you run a dimmer with that style fixture and bulb?

[bobzarry]

The outdoor fixtures are compact fluorescent so they are not dim-able. On the bright side (pardon the pun) they use very little energy for the amount of light they output (4550 lumens) at 6500k.

[bobzarry]

Here is a really bad pic (iphone) of a couple of tanks. These are both running the outdoor fixtures.bobs vivs.jpg

[Dendro Dave]

Originally Posted by james67

not necessarily true. there are ways (albeit not what anyone here will likley do) to keep ALL heat from lighting out of the tank while minimally affecting light intensity.

usually this requires a space between an enclosed light and the tank with lage amounts of cool air being constantly passed across the light.

james

I'm not sure thats true because light itself is energy and gives off heat. Take the suns rays for example, even though the sun is way far away and the air outside is 40F the sun's rays through green house glass heats the green house. Also causes my mobile home to heat up to 80 when its 50 outside and the AC isn't on. Lasers do the same thing, the light burns...not the excess power not being coverted to light and given off as heat (although that may burn you too). I wasn't sure "radiant enery" was the right term but according to wiki it appears to be. Radiant energy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

He is correct, we do get some heating from radiant energy, just like the suns rays passing through a window on a cold day...and thats why they say keep your viv away from a window. Electric lights do it on smaller scale but with the glass acting as insulation and the heat trapped due to a lack of ventilation you get heat build up. You would basically need to create a vacuum inside your viv to prevent this, and even that may not work. I'd have to refresh my physics knowledge to say for sure

BUT...
Fluorescents are a "colder" light source though so I don't think they have much radiant energy but I don't think they are 100% cold light (Yes cold light is an actual term). The problem is the further you move the light to reduce radiant energy and the heat given off from unconverted power the less light you get...so you need an insulator like a very clear very thick piece of glass (fans and and cool room temps allow for a thinner insulator) to eliminate almost all heat transfer leaving the very minimal radiant energy from the light only, or close to it...so while James is still correct that in using cold light sources like fluorescents you can eliminate most of the heat...perhaps all. Basically you can get so close that its is dispersed before it builds up.
So from a technical stand point Jame's is mistaken, from a practical one he is right or pretty close.

Ok another edit...I just looked again at the wiki..."watt" is "radiant energy per unit time, also called radiant power". If I read that right and understand the implications, it means all light of the same wattage gives off the same radiant energy? Eh we need a physics guru to straighten this out.

I guess the question is given the intensity of our lights is radiant energy even worth considering? (more likely it is for metal halide and other types of light other then fluorescent and led which are "colder" unless was right about all light of the same wattage having the same radiant energy, of course wave length may determine the amount of that energy also, like an IR heat emitter may take the available energy and radiate it for efficiently then a light of the same wattage but its all still EM energy). Ok I admit it...I just don't know

[bobzarry]

Radiant heat does not need a medium or molecules to produce heat since the heat is produced at the moment an object absorbs the radiation (photons). From Wiki: Infrared radiation is popularly known as "heat" or sometimes known as "heat radiation", since many people attribute all radiant heating to infrared light and/or all infrared radiation to heating. This is a widespread misconception, since light and electromagnetic waves of any frequency will heat surfaces that absorb them. Infrared light from the Sun only accounts for 49%[11] of the heating of the Earth, with the rest being caused by visible light that is absorbed then re-radiated at longer wavelengths. Visible light or ultraviolet-emitting lasers can char paper and incandescently hot objects emit visible radiation. It is true that objects at room temperature will emit radiation mostly concentrated in the 8 to 25 micrometer band, but this is not distinct from the emission of visible light by incandescent objects and ultraviolet by even hotter objects (see black body and Wien's displacement law).[12]

Bottom line yes the lights will also heat your viv through radiation even in a vacuum.

[Dendro Dave]

Originally Posted by bobzarry

Radiant heat does not need a medium or molecules to produce heat since the heat is produced at the moment an object absorbs the radiation (photons). From Wiki: Infrared radiation is popularly known as "heat" or sometimes known as "heat radiation", since many people attribute all radiant heating to infrared light and/or all infrared radiation to heating. This is a widespread misconception, since light and electromagnetic waves of any frequency will heat surfaces that absorb them. Infrared light from the Sun only accounts for 49%[11] of the heating of the Earth, with the rest being caused by visible light that is absorbed then re-radiated at longer wavelengths. Visible light or ultraviolet-emitting lasers can char paper and incandescently hot objects emit visible radiation. It is true that objects at room temperature will emit radiation mostly concentrated in the 8 to 25 micrometer band, but this is not distinct from the emission of visible light by incandescent objects and ultraviolet by even hotter objects (see black body and Wien's displacement law).[12]

Bottom line yes the lights will also heat your viv through radiation even in a vacuum.

Ok cool, thats what I thought at first but then that "cold light" idea popped into my head some how and that made me doubt myself...as for the vaccum idea that was based on them cooling objects to near absolute zero, of course now that I think about that, they also use lasers for that? Hmm...anyways thanks for the clarification.