The 6.5kk 27watt bulbs were rated for 1700lumen output. The 2.7kk 23watt bulbs I use now are rated to 1450lumens. Now, I realize the light output rateings are often falsely boosted by 10-20% or more, but reguardless, both bulbs should only be makeing light in the PAR wavelegnth range.
As a total side note, corals seem to have mechanisms for relfecting light off the skeleton and changeing the wavelegnth to suit there needs (dont ask me how they do it, because without frequency doubleling crystals, im helpless when it comes to changeing wavelegnth).
As a second side note, a guy i talked to about hydroponicly growing tomatoes and other plants informed me that he can totally control the plant growth by swapping the color of the bulbs. Don't quote me here, but I belive he said with strong green and blue light the plants would rapidly grow stalks/stem/and leaves, but would never flower and produce tomatoes. After he grew the plants structure to the level he desired, he swapped the green bulbs for red ones, and the plants would no longer grow any taller, but would imeadiately begin to flower and soon would produce huge amounts of tomatoes.
As another bit of data to this effect, at least 3 people on this board have switched from much higher light output 6k-10k compact florecent lighting on there refugiums and switched to the bulbs I showed the pictures of above. All of them have told me that the chaeto has never grown so rapidly or looked as healthy, even with par being at least halved.
Now, I do not understand beyond the simple effect of photosynthisis.
"In plants, the light-dependent reactions occur in the thylakoid membranes of the chloroplasts and use light energy to synthesize ATP and NADPH. The photons are captured in the antenna complexes of photosystem I and II by chlorophyll and accessory pigments (see diagram at right). When a chlorophyll a molecule at a photosystem's reaction center absorbs energy, an electron is excited and transferred to an electron-acceptor molecule through a process called Photoinduced charge separation. These electrons are shuttled through an electron transport chain, the so called Z-scheme shown in the diagram, that initially functions to generate a chemiosmotic potential across the membrane. An ATP synthase enzyme uses the chemiosmotic potential to make ATP during photophosphorylation while NADPH is a product of the terminal redox reaction in the Z-scheme.
Water photolysis
The NADPH is the main reducing agent in chloroplasts, providing a source of energetic electrons to other reactions. Its production leaves chlorophyll with a deficit of electrons (oxidized), which must be obtained from some other reducing agent. The excited electrons lost from chlorophyll in photosystem I are replaced from the electron transport chain by plastocyanin. However, since photosystem II includes the first steps of the Z-scheme, an external source of electrons is required to reduce its oxidized chlorophyll a molecules. This role is played by water during a reaction known as photolysis and results in water being split to give electrons, oxygen and hydrogen ions. Photosystem II is the only known biological enzyme that carries out this oxidation of water. Initially, the hydrogen ions from photolysis contribute to the chemiosmotic potential, but eventually they combine with the hydrogen carrier molecule NADP+ to form NADPH. Oxygen is a waste product of light-independent reactions, but the majority of organisms on Earth use oxygen for cellular respiration, including photosynthetic organisms.
Oxygen and photosynthesis
With respect to oxygen and photosynthesis, there are two important concepts.
Plant and algal cells also use oxygen for cellular respiration, although they have a net output of oxygen since much more is produced during photosynthesis.
Oxygen is a product of the photolysis reaction not the fixation of carbon dioxide, during the light-independent reactions. Consequently, the source of oxygen during photosynthesis is water, not carbon dioxide."
That way overly simplified bit copied from wikipedia is easy to understand, but I need something to get much much deeper to actaully begin to see down and dirty as to what is occuring.
I assume you have that deeper down and dirty understanding that I need, and I also belive you wouldnt tell me that lumens / PAR is all that matters if you didnt understand and trust your reason behind saying it.
So, unless this is simply a matter of pigment color and reflection, I would really appreciate if you could share some of your knowledge with me, or at least give me a link or two that could explain beyond the simp type stuff I posted above that doesnt get nearly deep enough. I'm looking for something beyond the stuff where it shows the little diagram of the photon strikeing the thylakoid membrane, an electron getting excited, and a little diagram of an H atom jumping on a CO2 molicule, and an O getting displaced...
I respect you and Mojo both very much, and it only seems natural to call you both Sir. I'll try to cut back though
thanks again
-Luke
