Overdriving Lights

[timebomb]

Hi, everyone,

When we were at Eco-Culture last Saturday, Gan C W told me that it's possible to over drive our lights by using 2 ballasts to drive one, instead of one ballast per light. The advantage, Gan said, is we can double the lumens this way. The life of the tube will be halved of course but that's a small price to pay for double the lumens.

Edward Yow, my good friend and expert aquatic gardener came to my house just now to fix up the ballasts for me. I'm using electronic ballasts for my flourescent tubes, one ballast for 2 tubes. Edward changed it to 2 ballasts for 2 tubes. Here are some before and after pictures:

Before: 1 electronic ballast to 2 tubes


After: 2 electronic ballasts to 2 tubes


Before: 3 sets of lights, 2 tubes each, 6 tubes altogether


After: 2 sets of lights, 2 tubes each, 4 tubes altogether


The flourescents I'm using


Now my lights are so bright I got to wear shades


Loh K L

[FC]

Interesting. It would be a great middle way to metal halide lamp.

Does the overdriving lamp changes colour? How did the plants response?

[PeterGwee]

More light isn't better in any sense unless you are way under in the first place. Demand for CO2 and nutrients would go up...fail to look into that and you get algae.

Regards
Peter Gwee :wink:

[Piscesgirl]

Looks very cool, Loh KL!

[Green Baron]

Kwek Leong,
You are fast ! Someone mentioned that the tubes could get very hot but I thought the heat output should but about the same if you keep to the same wattage, i.e. half the no of tubes.

Overdriving normal florescent tube (search ODNO on the web) is getting popular in US but it is still not very commmon in Singapore. The advantage of overdriving is that you need less tubes thus freeing up some space at the top of the tank and allow better air circulation. For people who need high light intensity, this could be a cheaper option than T5 or MH.

[FC]

Gan,

Do you have the modification procedure (electrical connection)?

[shortman]

Guys,

While searching for the DIY and found this PDF document may of interest to all of us in planting aquarium.

Light signals and the grow and the development of plants
http://www.cc.jyu.fi/~aphalo/old_pages/pdf/notes1.pdf

Best Regards

[timebomb]

Looks very cool, Loh KL!

Cool, eh? My sunglasses are supposed to make me look like Keanu Reeves in the Matrix

More light isn't better in any sense unless you are way under in the first place.

Hey, Peter,

My tank is about 380 litres of water. I grow mostly mosses and ferns. How many watts of lights should I have?

Loh K L

[TyroneGenade]

I grow mostly mosses and ferns. How many watts of lights should I have?

From the picture I see mainly long-leaf Hygrophilia... It must be really enjoying the light.

If you don't have algae now the odds are the increased light won't cause any to miraculously appear. Your plants are keeping the nutirents too low as it is and algae can thrive even under low light.

I bet if you get rid of any surface water disturbance the plants themselves will supply all the O2 your tank needs. You may well have to start pumping more CO2 into the tank but then you will also need to fertilize and run the risk of algae blooms... best keep it simple, keep in "natural".

While plants can get more than enough light it isn't harmful. You will notice a change in the orientation of the leaves of your Hygrophilia. In the morning just after the lights go on the leaves will be paralel with the light soruce. Once the plant has had enough light it will reorientate the leaves so that they are near perpendicular to the light source. At the this point the chloroplasts are overloaded with "light energy" and rather than burn them out the plant minimizes the ligh input. The light phase of photosynthesis has now ground to a halt. The dark phase is still going on but much slowerbecause the CO2 source is exhausted. If you switch off the lights at this point for a few hours the plants will reset and use up all the stored energy to make sugar from the CO2. What is generally not known is that plants fix CO2 at night in the form of malic acid or something else that they can then use during the day to convert light (energy) to sugars (chemical energy). Your plants absorb most of their daily CO2 at night but because with CO2 suplementation more is pumped into the tank that what the plants can assimilate. CO2 suplementation is only really of use during the day when the plant needs the CO2 as sink for the light energy.

Plants do need a dark period though.

Of course I think I have now given far more information and commentary than what is actually needed.

tt4n

[PeterGwee]

Well, KL...your light is just fine. Approximately 1.5w/g or so...pretty much low light and great. More room for error in terms of nutrients and CO2. That is probably why you don't have much issues despite not dosing any macros (probably enough from the tap and fish waste due to low light) and occasional wild dosage of traces.

Regards
Peter Gwee :wink:

[Green Baron]

Gan,

Do you have the modification procedure (electrical connection)?

Freddy,
Refer to this page and this page for detailed instruction. Do a search on Google and you will find many links for ODNO.

[juggler]

Gan:

Say I have this Elbiru 2x36W eBallast to fire a single 36W FL tube.
How do I connect to the FL tube?



Thanks.

[Green Baron]

Koah Fang,
I am not good in electronics that is why I have not DIY it eventhough I have read about this like 6 months back !

Kwek Leong,
Can you find out from Edward how he wire the eballast ? I think a lot of people here will really appreciate it if he can provide a wiring diagram for connecting 2x36W and 4x36W eballast to a FL tube.

Gan

[timebomb]

Gan, I called Edward on the phone just now and this is what he said -

Wire 1 and 8 together
Wire 2 and 7 together
Wire 3 and 6 together
Wire 4 and 5 together

Don't ask me what that's all about as I know nothing about electrical wiring. But I asked Edward to take a look at this topic and he promised he will when he goes home later. Edward's a very busy man and usually he won't get home until it's close to midnight. But let's be patient. Edward is one of the most helpful guys I know. I'm very sure he will register himself as a member and tell you all how to wire up the ballasts when he finds the time.

Loh K L

[timebomb]

Hey, folks,

Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to overdrive the lights after all. I have a problem in my tank now; the water has turned green. Here's how it looks:



I tried the method I posted in this thread by using plenty of Hornwort and a 3 day black out to clear the water but it isn't working. The Hornwort melted after just a day because it couldn't take the sudden change in temperatures as my main tank is now very cold compared to the tank the Hornwort was taken from. Maybe I'll get myself a bag of Daphnia if the water still does not clear up in another day or so.

Loh K L

[TyroneGenade]

Carbon filter out all the nutrients or reduce the light. The extra light is mobilizing the normally insoluble iron(III) to iron(II) (the biologically active form) so the Euglena can get at it.

Try reintroducing the hornwort slowly... Maybe some Ceratopteris?

Another idea is shorter frequent illumination periods. Say 4 hrs on, 8 hours off, 4 hrs on, 8 hours off? Give the plants a chance to use the light so they can absorb more. How long after the lights go do the Hygrophila leaves reorintate vertically in respect to the light? How long before they spread out horizontally? This the light/dark cycle you want to implement. The plants will better assimilate the nutrients and may out compete the Euglena. If you try this then you mustn't reduce the nutrient levels by carbon filterins.

By the way, reducing the light only helps the algae that can better assimilate the light.

good luck

[PeterGwee]

Mr Loh, simply do a 3-5 day complete blackout for the tank to kill off the greenwater. Aerate the tank during the period of blackout and make sure you "off" the CO2 supply. The method works well if you don't allow any light to get in there during the blackout and is free. Who would argue with "free".

The series of large water changes in order to clean off the suspected copper content probably upset the balance of the tank. The bacteria in the filter might have die along with the series of large water changes and the fact that you do not dose much nutrients nor take note of your CO2 concentration probably slow or stunt the plants causing the uptake of ammonia to drop. (Ammonia is the trigger to greenwater....)

Regards
Peter Gwee :wink:

[juggler]

KL: So the over-driving really works.

If your 4 FL tubes are over-driven to be equivalent to 8 FL tubes intensity, then you are increasing light intensity by 33% from your original 6 tubes. Maybe you can shorten the lighting duration or set a timer for each set of lights so they overlap in duration.

Eg. if your original 6 tubes are turned on for 10 hours daily, you can now have each set of 2 over-driven tubes turned on for 7.5hrs with a 5 hr overlap in between to achieve the same average intensity over the same 10 hours. Hope my calculations are correct.

Another sure work option is still to put floating Frogbits or Salvinia. They block excess light and soak up excess nutrients.

[felixe]

Yummy green Juice !


In my humble experience about green water,

cheapest pre-filter of the water-purifier(instead of diatom filter) and water-pump(40W or more)
+ UV lamp units,
+ very very tiny amount of "authorized herbicide" for an aquarium,
in the end.


BTW, I think that maybe your tankmates need some time to adapt to the changed situation.
The best way for the "Balance" of your tank are always using a bio-chemical mechanism and giving them a time, as you may know... :wink:

[FC]

I was told that green water algae is the main diet of daphnia.

Large water change followed by UV has helped many to clear GW algae too. It's matter of time, you will defeat them.