Im not sure if everyone knows, but Athony Calfo has recently taken the position of co-president at IceCap. They arent wasting anytime either, they have recently announced 3 new metal halide bulbs.
10K Blue Growth
14K Blue Balance
20K Blue Depth
I love their ballasts, they are the only ones i run, and im curious to see what these new bulbs will look like.
Officers - Have we looked into getting icecap as a sponser? They’re a local company right in our backyard and a think a relationship would be good for the club and company. I certainly wouldnt mind a potential discount!
I bet we could contact them and get a test bulb of each
i agree. I think there was someon in the club that just set up a new cube with 250W pendant. I think we should let him try out a DE 14K 250W if we can get one!
The announcement was made at the NJRC frag swap which Andy, Ken, and I were at. NJRC Frag Swap & Symposium - Reef Central Online Community was said a couple days before the swap that Calfo would be IceCap’s guest speaker, but then we were told that Calfo was to be introduced in a way that he never been introduced before and never would be again. The guy gave a nice 5 minute introduction ending with presenting us with the hopefully new co-president of Ice Cap. Calfo accepted.
Calfo gave a presentation on, “presentation on the new and emerging possibilities for Recycling and Sustainability within the Saltwater Aquarium Hobby”. He said he had been presented with similar opportunities in the past, but had turned them all down. He excepted this time because he felt this would be the opportunity to make some serious change in the hobby. Part of the agreement that brought Calfo over to ice cap was the new Ice cap foundation R.E.E.F.(Which I can’t wait to here more about) It was said that this foundation would, “promote greater recycling, aquaculture, and sustainability for our beloved hobby”. They stated by collecting MH bulbs at the frag swap which are very dangerous in land fills.
For those of you who may not have heard the name Anthony Calfo before, he is one of the more known authors and speakers in the hobby. He has presented all of the big events in the hobby and has traveled the world presenting to hobbyist and working with public aquariums. He is a Pennsylvanian who has given presentations and book signings several times with in a hours distance of here. His biggest works include his “Book of Coral Propagationâ€ÂÂÂÂÂÂÂ, “Reef Invertebrates†and “C The Journalâ€ÂÂÂÂÂÂÂ. He assured the audience at the NJRC swap that his new job would not interfere with his work on his journal and the production of live stock in his green house and fish rooms.
Oh and as far as my opinion of ice cap products I am currently using them over 4 of my frag tanks and my display and hope to find the funds to purchase eight more reflectors and two more ballast during the next year. I like them.
Depending on when we get said bulbs, I think we should hand the bulbs off to someone who has the best ability to test them. Only makes sense since we are getting the ability to test them. In the next year I hope to obtain a PAR meter for testing the lighting I am using over my frag tanks. I also have over 100 species of corals I could put under the bulbs including a good mixture of softies, LPS, and SPS.
I suppose it also depends how many bulbs we are testing, if we are testing eight 250W bulbs and need to run them for 24 months they are all your’s Shawn, lol. I don’t have the ability to re-wire my basement to handle that amount of electricity and you seem to be good with that kind of stuff.
Crap! Fixed that one, lol. Don’t know how I made that typo.
If 3 bulbs = 3 people then we have three different testing environments. Likely the three people would run the bulbs in different temperatures with different humiditys in the room. They would likely put different animals under them with different depths of water. They may even use three different reflectors and three different ballasts. I am sure they wouldn’t all three clean the bulbs and reflectors on the same schedule either. If we were to actually test the variables need to be held constant as possible.
I would imagine that the main types of feeback they are looking for are the following, especially if they are using new and differnt components to manufacture the bulbs.
longevity
color
growth
That guy sanjay on RC has done some extensive testing on lamps, bulbs, and ballast combinations but the numbers arent always the bottom line. I for one am more than willing to sacrifice a little PAR for better color and/or energy efficiency. That was the main reason i decided to go with the icecap ballast in the first place. I now have 2 250W ballasts on my downstairs fixture and a brand new 250W ballast on my upstairs fixture.
