Good T5's

[Rainer Feyer]

Hey all,

have any of you done any recent comparison's of T5 vs. Haylide?

A friend of mine is looking at T5's from Foster and Smith: http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=12772 But I see that they do not have individual reflectors, otherwise sound nice.
The once I have are Tek lights from ReefGeeks which I am happy with.

Is Ken still around? He did a big comparison on the in the past.

[Nammy]

I've been interested in T-5's also but not sure what to get.

[Rainer Feyer]

Nammy,

I'll try leaving a thread on the general RC discussion forum

[Nammy]

Sounds good Rainer..

[xxxbadfishxxx]

i have TekLight and like them the only drawback is that i use the acrylic shield and they have no fans so the output is like 20% less then it could be. The Nova's you are looking at aren't worth it because they only have one reflector.

Aquatinics were the way to go, however, they just had a 35% price increase that puts them out of my price range. ATI are nice but expensive as well.

However, Current is coming out with a new model with Individual reflectors, 2 cooling fans, Mounting legs and shield for an affordable price. They are now pre order only, i cant wait to see how they perform, i would think they would out perform a standard teklight because of the cooling fans. Time will tell.

http://www.marineandreef.com/shoppro/power_novaPro.htm

[Rainer Feyer]

Badfish,

good to know! Thqnks!

I have the TekLights myself and love them. I really didn't konw about the fan vs. output thing until someone mentioned it last week. Is there really a 20% difference in output? Are fans capable of producing the increase? If so, I have two computer fans mounted in my hood which could help.

[xxxbadfishxxx]

so you have your teklight mounted inside a hood? If so, do you have the acrylic shield? The problem with the teklight is many use the acrylic shield, whit this in place the lights arent being cooled which reduces the output by 20%. I beleive if you dont have the acrylic shield and you have some sort of fan running across you will be okay.

i found some reviews on the new Novas, although they are not out yet, they have been getting Okay reviews. People said not the best individual reflectors, but an improvement from the older version. If they didnt have the fan they would not compete with the teklight, but since they do, many people beleive the PAR readings should be around the same.

[Rainer Feyer]

I actually took the acrylic protectors out so I get more direct light. They are inside a hood. I really like the light itself, 50% 10K, 50% Actinic.

I am still gonna spend some time some day and research the reflectors themselves. Though I think I know what they mean by parabolic, I really don';t know what the improvement is.