The WaveGo is an exciting new spectrometer from Ocean Optics which finally makes a research-grade light meter at a price that professional aquarists can consider. Ocean Optics is a company we don’t expect many of you have heard of because they don’t make aquarium products, they make scientific instruments for research.
Unlike the PAR meters that we get use from Apogee which average all of the usable light spectrum for photosynthetic purposes, a real spectrometer measures the light for all wavelengths. In the case of the WaveGo it has a resolution of three nanometers so you know exactly how much light is coming from basically every color of the spectrum.
Priced at $2000 and probably a little more involved to use than a PAR meter (and not being waterproof) the WaveGo is not something for the casual hobbyist. But if you have a coral farm, are very interested in the real quality of light, or simply want to compare the spectrum that aquarium fixtures are emitting, the WaveGo is the first tool of its kind that can describe the color of the light.
Like any good modern high tech electronic device, the WaveGo connects to cloud logging & reporting services, it works with a wide range of Android devices and has a sniffy android app for analysis and data sharing. In layman’s terms this means that using the WaveGo we’ll be able to spot precise wavelengths of light that make our corals pop, and fine tune our lights for best coloration, appearance, growth and color rendition. [Wave Illumination]
