What's wattage and kelvin

[brucegan1]

hi guys,

jus curious to ask what is the diff between Wattage and Kelvin's of the light?Till now Im still confused

[Tanzy]

Wattage of a light is how much electricity the light uses.

Kelvin is a measurement of the colour temperature. The greater the number, the bluer and conversely, lower the number, the redder.

[Tanggy]

Wattage will determine the intensity/brightness of light. As light is measure in lumens. but unless you have a light meter, it is difficult to measure light intensity/brightness. So a common method is to use wattage as a measure. The norm required for a reef tank is 3-5watt per gallon of water. With some reefers going as high as 8-9watt per gallon depending on corals kept.

eg. a standard 3x1.5x1.5ft tank is 55gallon. So est. 150watt to get slightly under 3watt/gallon or 250 will give you slightly under 5watt/lt.

But lumen to wattage is not fix as some are brighter than others with the same watt. and vise visa. But as a general rule of thump if you have 5watt/gallon, it's enough for most.

[Tanggy]

PS: the kelvin is just the color. 6500k is what corals needs and is the most economical option. so anytihing >6500k is ok. But cos some find it a bit yellowish. most reefers use 10,000k. some 14,000 and some 20,0000.

But a word of caution. the higher the kelvin you go, the less light is radiated (lower par). so lets say yo have a 250watt 20,000k (blue) MH, it is dimmer than a 10,000k light. so if you have just enough intensity with a 10,000k bulb, you might not have enough with a 20,000k one. Assuming they are the same wattage.

[hsloo]

*edited by moderator for hijacking* Edited February 14, 2004 by Tanzy

[Tanzy]

hsloo.

Your question is totally unrelated to this thread. Why don't you start a new thread instead of hijacking other's. It's not that difficult. Try it, you might like it.

The irony is that I split this thread from another because brucegan1 was hijacking another person's thread.

[hsloo]

Ok, sure. No problem.