What Is Lux, What about Lumens?
Lux: Lux is a measurement that defines light intensity at a given distance. Light diffuses as it gets farther from the light source, thus a lux measurement very close to a light source will be higher then a lux measurement recorder farther away from the same light source. Lumens: Lumens refer to the amount of light at the light source (light bulb) only. Lumens do not describe light intensity at any distance and have nothing to do with the actual intensity of light on our aquarium inhabitants. Which one: Many manufactures try to describe their products with a Lumens value but we prefer to describe in Lux because Lux describes Light intensity at a given distance (our aquarium inhabitants). Regardless of lumen rating, different light sources diffuse differently over distances. A high lumen rated bulb is useless if only minimal amounts of light actually get to you aquarium specimens. Lux is the way to measure the actual light intensity at the appropriate tank inhabitant level. It is import
