A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners

Water Cooled HID's

I am just curious if anyone has seen or used these lighting systems. I just started researching them and like the idea of how cool they run. I think a possible downside would be spectrum could be decreased......? Thus affecting yield.......? Anywho, just trying to get some dialogue rolling here.

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Permalink Reply by Jon Parr on August 14, 2012 at 5:48pm

I considered it, Jay, if you mean the "cool tube" style double glass sleeve with water between them. If you go that road, keep in mind that the cooling water will have to be nutrient free, maybe even spiked with bleach to avoid algae. The concept is stellar, and I was planning on circulating the coolant water thru some sort of heat exchanger in my fish tank to capture the waste heat. Some drawbacks that made me reconsider:

1- they're expensive, and I'm a cheap bastard

2- there is sure to be some serious lumen loss through two tubes of glass AND water, and if you use a reflector you will be doubly robbed of lumens thru re-strike

3- shit happens. water and glass breaking near electricity, hot bulb, and fish kinda spell headache to me

I use vertical bare bulbs and arrange my plants around the light with no reflector. Natural convection cools the bulb better than glass and water for sure, and the whole set-up is cheap and efficient, no tubes, no exchanger, no reflector, no fan, no wasted lumens. A 400W CMH stays cool enough to touch using this method