QuoteReplyTopic: vho lighting question Posted: May 08 2007 at 1:57pm
I am building my own stand and hood. I have the VHO lights for it. What works for a reflector? should I buy one or is there something better. Also do i need to cover the lights with acrylic or something so they are not bare over the water? Thanks
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I buy the URI brand VHO bulbs with the internal reflector. I just paint the inside of the hood white which provides some reflection. Since I pack the lights in fairly tight, there is no big advantage with a fancy reflector...
Most leave the top open with the bulbs exposed to the water. About the only bad thing that will happen is that salt creep will build up on the bulbs. I clean them off every couple of months or so..
Thanks,
Scott
President Idaho Marine Aquarium Society A fair and biased reef hobbyist "How do you make poor people rich by making rich people poor" Rush Limbaugh on Obama taxes
I have a reflector over two of the bulbs as I bought a retro kit to fit the old canopy over my 75 gallon tank (18" wide). The reflector has 2 MH sockets and a VHO lamp on each side of the MH lamps. My current 120 is 24" wide so I added 2 more VHOs for a total of four. I bought one of those plastic coated aluminum car window reflectors and just cut some strips to the size I needed and attached them above the 2 VHO lamps that I added with thumbtacks. I wouldn't try this over MH lamps, but the VHOs haven't seemed to affect it at all. Works great.
Edited by gateb - May 08 2007 at 9:16pm
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The internal reflectors are awesome. I once placed a large sheet of mirrored aluminum reflector material over some URI VHO tubes with the internal reflectors and it made no noticable difference in light intensity.
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The internal reflectors are awesome. I once placed a large sheet of mirrored aluminum reflector material over some URI VHO tubes with the internal reflectors and it made no noticable difference in light intensity.
yeah, nothing is being emitted from the top of the bulbs so a reflector above will do nothing
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