Hi
Ive got a 72"X18"X19" Seabray dolphin tank that I have used for
Oscars, now sadly gone. Ive been thinking about and studying the
possibility of using it for a large planted tank. My biggest worry so
far is the amount of lighting to be used, at least 4 x 4ft strip
lamps. Its not the cost of the bulbs so much as the control units and
reflectors etc.
Ive priced these up at at least £110 UK prices (about $175 us)
Any ideas for a cheaper setup available in the UK? Im reading a lot
about compact fluorescents, but cant find any info on what they
connect to. They look like curly strip lamps and are quite cheap.
Any help would be gratefully received, I keep going around in circles.
My main aim would be a low tech planted aquarium in a Diana L.
Walstada kind of stlye.

You could just use shop lights, cut 2 of them down to 2 feet....teh
reflectors that is...adn kind of mount the bulbs like this
_________
_________
_________
_________

use standard hardware store shop lights...
stacey morris wrote:

Hi
Ive got a 72"X18"X19" Seabray dolphin tank that I have used for
Oscars, now sadly gone. Ive been thinking about and studying the
possibility of using it for a large planted tank. My biggest worry so
far is the amount of lighting to be used, at least 4 x 4ft strip
lamps. Its not the cost of the bulbs so much as the control units and
reflectors etc.
Ive priced these up at at least £110 UK prices (about $175 us)
Any ideas for a cheaper setup available in the UK? Im reading a lot
about compact fluorescents, but cant find any info on what they
connect to. They look like curly strip lamps and are quite cheap.
Any help would be gratefully received, I keep going around in circles.
My main aim would be a low tech planted aquarium in a Diana L.
Walstada kind of stlye.

At the risk of sounding stupid, what are shop lights? Are they just a
couple of strip lights in a fixture for shops?


On Tue, 17 Dec 2002 15:27:37 -0500, Rich Conley
wrote:

You could just use shop lights, cut 2 of them down to 2 feet....teh
reflectors that is...adn kind of mount the bulbs like this
_________
_________
_________
_________

use standard hardware store shop lights...
stacey morris wrote:

Hi
Ive got a 72"X18"X19" Seabray dolphin tank that I have used for
Oscars, now sadly gone. Ive been thinking about and studying the
possibility of using it for a large planted tank. My biggest worry so
far is the amount of lighting to be used, at least 4 x 4ft strip
lamps. Its not the cost of the bulbs so much as the control units and
reflectors etc.
Ive priced these up at at least £110 UK prices (about $175 us)
Any ideas for a cheaper setup available in the UK? Im reading a lot
about compact fluorescents, but cant find any info on what they
connect to. They look like curly strip lamps and are quite cheap.
Any help would be gratefully received, I keep going around in circles.
My main aim would be a low tech planted aquarium in a Diana L.
Walstada kind of stlye.

In article , stacey morris wrote:
At the risk of sounding stupid, what are shop lights? Are they just a
couple of strip lights in a fixture for shops?

Yup.. Over here in the US, you can get them at places like Home Depot or
Lowes for about $20 each which gives you a cheap light fixture that is really
meant to be hung from the ceiling on small chains in your garage -- where it
gets the "shop" name from.

X-addict

No tank is too big as long as there is room to eat and sleep under the tank or
next to it ;-) I keep a 125 full of cardinal tetras and other small fish.
prettiest aquarium i ever saw even if i do say so myself. the real problem is
with people trying to keep fish in an aquarium that is too small. when that
happens the end result is always sad with death and disfigerment resulting from
over crowding the fish. My dream aquarium is 144"L X 30"T X 48"W with thousands
of cardinal tetras! the only limit to your tank is the size of your wallet and
the house you want to put it in.
remove nospam from e-mail to send to me, I grow trees in aquariums like bonsai.
I breed dwarf crayfish, great for planted community tanks. If you can get me a
shovelnose sturgeon fingerling (Scaphirhynchus platorynchus) no wild caught
please, contact me

You have some options:

40 wat fluorescents - stagger them or mount them diagonally. These
are inefficient but cheap to buy initially.

compact fluorescents. The curly oens are for home use to
repace lightbulbs. You don't wantthem near your aquaria;
the proper ones are fantastically efficient and long loved but
expensive.

I'd be tempted to use 2 150W mercury lamps. They're cheap
enough to buy as night safetly lamps. Add a few incandescent
halognes to make up the red that's missing in the mercury lamps
and you're done.

There's no cheap way to properly light up a six foot tank!
--
Richard Sexton | Mercedes Parts: http://parts.mbz.org
http://www.mbz.org Mailing lists: http://lists.mbz.org
W108, W126 Mercedes Classifieds: http://ads.mbz.org
** new -- Watch list: http://watches.list.mbz.org

X-Addict wrote in message
link.net...
In article , stacey morris
wrote:
At the risk of sounding stupid, what are shop lights? Are they just a
couple of strip lights in a fixture for shops?

Yup.. Over here in the US, you can get them at places like Home Depot or
Lowes for about $20 each which gives you a cheap light fixture that is
really
meant to be hung from the ceiling on small chains in your garage -- where
it
gets the "shop" name from.


And in the UK look for a 'City Electrical Factors' in the phone book, they
are all
over the place and if you go after the morning rush you are bound to find
someone who
can sort out all the bits you need.

Dave

stacey morris wrote in message
...
Hi
Ive got a 72"X18"X19" Seabray dolphin tank that I have used for
Oscars, now sadly gone. Ive been thinking about and studying the
possibility of using it for a large planted tank. My biggest worry so
far is the amount of lighting to be used, at least 4 x 4ft strip
lamps. Its not the cost of the bulbs so much as the control units and
reflectors etc.
Ive priced these up at at least £110 UK prices (about $175 us)
Any ideas for a cheaper setup available in the UK? Im reading a lot
about compact fluorescents, but cant find any info on what they
connect to. They look like curly strip lamps and are quite cheap.
Any help would be gratefully received, I keep going around in circles.
My main aim would be a low tech planted aquarium in a Diana L.
Walstada kind of stlye.

Light one end of the tank,
plant under the lights and let the planting drop down to bare substrate.
It is what I did on my 5 foot tank, couldn't afford the control unit for
a bigger lamp so stuck with a three foot tube.

Reflectors can be simple, use cooking foil (turkey size is good)
paste to the inside of the hood and replace when you can afford
'better'.

Dave

stacey morris wrote in message . ..
Hi
Ive got a 72"X18"X19" Seabray dolphin tank that I have used for
Oscars, now sadly gone. Ive been thinking about and studying the
possibility of using it for a large planted tank. My biggest worry so
far is the amount of lighting to be used, at least 4 x 4ft strip
lamps. Its not the cost of the bulbs so much as the control units and
reflectors etc.
Ive priced these up at at least £110 UK prices (about $175 us)
Any ideas for a cheaper setup available in the UK? Im reading a lot
about compact fluorescents, but cant find any info on what they
connect to. They look like curly strip lamps and are quite cheap.
Any help would be gratefully received, I keep going around in circles.
My main aim would be a low tech planted aquarium in a Diana L.
Walstada kind of stlye.

I ran a 6ft Seabray Dolphin tank as a plant tank some years ago
(rather old picture at):
http://mike-edwardes.members.beeb.net/plant/hitech.html

This was lit with 4 x 5 ft flourescents. if you want to run a
"Lo-input" Walstad-style tank (which I highly recommend:
http://mike-edwardes.members.beeb.net/plant/lotech.html
you will be fine with this light level.

Mike.
--
Mike Edwardes Tropicals
http://mike-edwardes.members.beeb.net

stacey morris wrote in message . ..
Mike
Thanks for your input - it was actually your site that gave
me the inspiration for the low tech approach! I guess Im just going to
have to bite the bullet and splash out on the Arcadia lamps and
control units. Ironically, it will probably be cheaper to buy 6 x 4fts
with control units than 4 x 5fts! Do you think I could get away with
my Fluval 403 for filtration?
Stacey

You don't need any filtration at all for the Walstad method - the
plants do the work. What you could do is use the empty cannister to
give some water movement, which she recommends. Having said that, I
have now removed the powerheads from my tanks and I'm not sure I've
seen any effect at all, but these are admittedly smaller tanks than
yours.

Mike.
--
Mike Edwardes Tropicals
http://mike-edwardes.members.beeb.net

The best DIY reflectors is mylar. Where do you get it? Buy a couple of bags
of potato chips, and turn them inside out! Then use adhesive spray or double
sided tape to stick it behind your lights. It works good because it is easy
to get all the wrinkles out, so the light is reflected and not dispersed.


Reflectors can be simple, use cooking foil (turkey size is good)
paste to the inside of the hood and replace when you can afford
'better'.

Dave



__
"Insert witty comment here."
-John

(redled) wrote:

The best DIY reflectors is mylar. Where do you get it? Buy a couple of bags
of potato chips, and turn them inside out!

Make sure to buy dip, too. No point wasting the chips.

--
www.ericschreiber.com

On Fri, 20 Dec 2002 02:34:35 GMT, (redled) wrote:

sided tape to stick it behind your lights. It works good because it is easy
to get all the wrinkles out, so the light is reflected and not dispersed.

Unless you carefully shape the reflector to reflect the light AROUND
the tube it came out of, then the reflective surface is actually worse
than a surface that disperses the light.

Unless you use a carefully designed reflector, simply painting the top
of the hood/canopy flat white will do a better job than a mirror
surface.


Chuck Gadd
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua

Good tip...the mylar works well in my case because I used very narrow shop
lights that came housed in white metal, which wraps around the tops of the
tubes.

In article , wrote:
On Fri, 20 Dec 2002 02:34:35 GMT, (redled) wrote:

sided tape to stick it behind your lights. It works good because it is easy
to get all the wrinkles out, so the light is reflected and not dispersed.

Unless you carefully shape the reflector to reflect the light AROUND
the tube it came out of, then the reflective surface is actually worse
than a surface that disperses the light.

Unless you use a carefully designed reflector, simply painting the top
of the hood/canopy flat white will do a better job than a mirror
surface.


Chuck Gadd
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua

__
"Insert witty comment here."
-John