LUX Meter

[Jrmass]

A few of us were talking at today's meeting about possibly investing in a LUX Meter... They demand a rather hefty price and so the thought was that if anyone wanted to get in on the club buying one we could just go this route. This was just an idea btw and NO DETAILS were talked about other than possibly having some people toss some money in and just share it between us *or if a lot of people wanted to get in have it between additional people* (who knows as far as that goes). I was just told that I should toss the idea out and see what everyone thought about this and to find out if anyone would be interested so that we might have an idea who all would find a need for one.

BTW a LUX Meter is a meter that measures the light readings at a given point of a persons tank to determine whether they have adiquate lighting in a given spot for particular corals.

Tell me what you guys think about this.

Jason

[OLDETOWNENORTHPETS]

Great Idea, would love to borrow that from you Jason.

[carym]

Matt I was thinking you could get one in the store for people to use lol

[ZMattie]

Originally Posted by carym

Matt I was thinking you could get one in the store for people to use lol

x2!

[Jrmass]

Actually, if a person had one they could just rent it out... so, in all honesty it's not that bad of an idea... I know I would pay to use one... *thinking* hrmmmm not a bad idea zach.

Jas

[OLDETOWNENORTHPETS]

I KNEW that this was where this thread was heading as soon as I posted.

[tangmang23]

but matt we look at it this way, when ur bulbs get old, u can continue to test to ensure your corals that are being sold are always under perfect lighting. this ensures to us customers that were getting only the best.




i had to post this

[Jrmass]

Originally Posted by tangmang23

but matt we look at it this way, when ur bulbs get old, u can continue to test to ensure your corals that are being sold are always under perfect lighting. this ensures to us customers that were getting only the best.




i had to post this

Can I offer you a tissue to clean the brown off your nose? =)

And yes Matt... you should NEVER post on a site where we are talking about spending money and not knowing where it's coming from lol... That's just grounds for you offering to buy it for us! lol.

Jas

[Timmy]

Great Ideas by all of you. I would be more than happy to contribute for a share of the meter. My suggestion would be keep it at our local Lark moderaters place. He is pretty centralized to everyone. Plus he could start a thread on who has it and when they plan to bring it back. Kind of like a checkout at a library. Just a thought.

[tangmang23]

what ever gets us a lux meter, jk jk jk

[Afish4u]

I would really hold off on getting a lux meter. Sometimes someone in the cites may sell for 50.00 or so but even the guys over there have explained why the meter isn't all that great. I'll need some time to search for it. here was a quick discussion that might help par vs lux.

PAR is the measure of the intensity(strength)of light,it is much more usefull than LUX.Intensitity is what grows coral.Lux measures wave lengths of light.I can not explian beyond this.It has been suggested to me in the past by several people to purchase a PAR and not a LUX meter. Maybe someone with a better understanding will chime in.

and the next response.

Lux does measure intensity but doesn't care about spectrum. Certainly suitable for comparing bulbs ages and for tweaking active cooling.

Par meters in our price ranges have many faults too as they register the low spretrum blues are not as accurate.

This is just a bit of their discussion.... I to was looking at a lux meter before but have since stopped considering. This may not help but thought I would pass this along.

[D.J.]

i never understood the purpose of these......i mean if you runnin a 180g tank with a single tube flouresent...then no you dont have enuff light....if your runnin a HQI setup on there and its a 72in'er then you should have enuff light....

or am i missing the point here.....i know that certain coral need more light than others but that shold be common sense on placement...

im just lost on this....ive heard they are nice to have and others say wase of money....

care to explain anyone??

[hansmatt]

The general point is that depending on the type of light source (point source like MH, or a spectrum, like tubes) the light "power" varies tremendously from location to locaiton. Light directly beneath the bulbs (for mH at least) is strongest, while it drops by dramatically as you go deeper. The bigger the angle from directly below the light, the more is lost.
There are some great discussions & quantitative evaluations I've seen, but these are mostly in comparison of reflectors, bulb types, with/without fans over T5's, ballasts etc. I don't know if I would personally use one other than for the "knowing" of the intensity at certain locations. We cannot say "x" coral needs "y amount" of light. Though the scientific comparison is very intersting to me, I don't have the time, $, or sponsorship of equipment to let me personally run the numbers.
That said, I'd love it if somebody local had one and we could compare light intensity over differenty types of lighting systems.