Thinking about T5s
 

I'm considering upgrading my lights to T5s (8 strips) over my 22 inch deep 125 gallon tank (4 inch sand bed). I want to be able to maintain nice coloration in SPS. How do these compare to MH? I understand Premiere Fish and Reef has a tank with only T5s and they have beautiful SPS. I plan on taking a look myself but want other people’s opinions.

I'd imagine you could do it. Just buy good fixtures/ballast i.e. ATI, IceCap, etc.

They get better spread then metal halides. You have more color combo's to choose from too. I'd say go for it.

How about the intensity?

I was wondering the same thing, until Sat when I saw Dave's tank after the frag swap. His tank has BEAUTIFUL color in his SPS and his CLAMS are looking beautiful! I am going with T5's on my 90 after seeing his tank. It seems the big thing to get w/ T5's are good reflectors. If you are interested, I would talk to either Grim Reefer or Dave, I forget his screen name. HTH
Bill

They have very good intensity. Very bright. The difference is metal halides penetrate deeper than t5's but do not have as good of spread.

Will they penatrate deep enough for a 22" deep tank?

Yes!

[QUOTE][i]<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10836555#post10836555 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by $alt_Creep [/i]
[B]Will they penatrate deep enough for a 22" deep tank? [/B][/QUOTE]

Deep enough for what?

I assume if you get HO T5s and you have about 8 of them, depending on your bulb combination, reflectors, and distance from the bulbs to the water, then yes, you would be able to have clams and sps down there.

You should look into Aquactinics if you haven't already. They have some of the best T5 fixtures out there and I plan on ordering one of them here in the next couple of days.

[url]http://www.aquactinics.com/[/url]

If you have general questions check out the T5 question and answer thread, I have no idea how many hundreds of pages there are but you can get an idea of fixtures and bulb combos as well as all of the par/intensity questions answered there:

[url]http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=988440&perpage=25&pagenumber=1[/url]

Thanks for the input. :)

i have a 6x 54watt teklight, everyone will say its crap because of no fan, but it is a easy fix.

t5's are great, but the shimmering effect that mh gives cant be beat. why not have both? i have only used mh so i cant say much for t5's, but it seems to me that there are quite a few reefers around here that switched from mh to t5 only to go back to mh again. with the excellent reflectors they have now for mh, i dont see how you can go wrong with mh. just my personal opinion.

If you need a fixture the Aquactinics will do. If you want a retrofit then I would suggest either 6 rows of 80 watt 60" long lamps or 6 rows of 36" 39 watt lamps side by side.

If you do a retro I am instigating a group buy for reefgeek in the DARC forum so it would be a great time to save some cash.

The t5's are greta i have a 8 bulb setup on a 90 gallon frag tank and get great growth and color and i also just put 4 bulbs over my 125 and like it alot better than my vho's for color choices and growth. The four builbs with their own reflectors are as bright as the 8 bulb setup with one reflector. Just my 2 cents....

I have a 72" tank, do they make 72" T5 strips? I think I would like a retro fit as I want to keep my hood. T5s really appeal to me because I believe 400 watt MHs will require a chiller, which I don't have.

60" is the longest length for the good equipment. It's either that or use 36" lamps side by side.

Reefgeek has can order the ATI lamp fixture as well which I hear is about a 1 month turn around time. When it comes time for me to buy new bulbs for my tek light I might just sell it and buy the ATI fixture unless something better comes along.

I don't asthetically like the looks of the aquatinics solar flare fixture but I have heard good results from that.

[QUOTE][i]<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10837878#post10837878 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mbunakeith [/i]
[B]t5's are great, but the shimmering effect that mh gives cant be beat. why not have both? i have only used mh so i cant say much for t5's, but it seems to me that there are quite a few reefers around here that switched from mh to t5 only to go back to mh again. with the excellent reflectors they have now for mh, i dont see how you can go wrong with mh. just my personal opinion. [/B][/QUOTE]

The shimmering effect would not mean a thing in the entire scheme of things. Par output, cost of the system, cost of buld replacement, wattage used. etc. Hands down, t-5s for the right size tank rule.

The frequency of replacing bulbs is quite a bit less than any other bulb as well. One company was telling us that the daylights need to be changed out once a year and the actinic need to be changed out once every three years (it might be the other way around I don't remember for sure). That would definately be something worth looking into, I'll try to find out specifics for you. Whether or not it is true I'm not sure since I don't know anyone who has had T5s that long.

If you want top performance don't go over a year on any T5 lamp.

I saw an interesting thread about MH bulbs as they age (maybe Grimm was part of that). It showed that there is a falloff during the first 6 months (if I remember right), but then it leveled off. It seemed to show that after that point, you could probably leave them in place for a surprisingly long time and the additional degradation would be very slow. It seemed to show that you should either replace them about every 4 months to keep them at their peak, or leave them burning for a year or two. I don’t remember how detailed or scientific the test was, but the results they showed surprised me.

Anyway, I would vote for what I have, which is T-5s with some MH. I for one DO think the shimmer means something in the overall scheme of enjoying my tank, but T5s sound like the best $ value per photon.

And although I sometimes teach classes on optics, I still don’t understand the depth/penetration issue. Seems to me that a ray of light at the proper angle will pass through roughly the same amount of water as a similar ray from another source. MH doesn’t send light any faster or with more “push” per ray. MH being a point source may have more rays going straight down from the bulb, but good reflectors on a T5 should send rays to the same depth, but spread them our over a larger area. Assuming the rays are similar frequencies (bluer rays have more scattering), they should suffer similar scattering and absorption in the water, so I’d be surprised if the TOTAL light reaching the entire sand bed is better with MH for the same amount of starting light. But then I haven’t read enough of the physics and practical test results threads here yet (and might not fully understand them if I did).

Hoss's 2 cents

I have 8 T-5's over my 140 show. The depth is 30" and I have clams & acro's fairly low in the tank. I realize your in Colo. Springs, but if you have any interest in coming to North Denver, come to the reef meeting this weekend, Sunday, at my house, and check it out. Would love to meet another reefer.

I'd love to check it out. I'll try and be there however I have a newborn and getting away isn't easy. Thanks for the invite and information, do you have any pictures?

I think the way you pose your question will dictate your respones. If you ask "thinking about MH, PC, or VHO" you will likely get the proponderance of affirmations for that light. No one wants to say "I have xx and it sucks", although I might say that about PC's in my experience.

I have used all of them. There are advantages and converse to each. I tend to stay with MH but supplement with T5 because they offer more install options and color choice. People will offer a vigorous defense for their favorite often citing cost as an incentive. The long-term cost of lighting, in my opinion, pales in comparison to the cost of livestock, maintenance,etc. Other impressions are less objective. e.g. "T5's, or MH or VHO rock". You get the idea.

What I am trying to say is go with the look you want. I want shimmer lines from point sources. But, I also want the dawn/dusk look I get from T5's.

I also agree with denverhoss. Intensity is defined in pyhsics as Watts per Unit Area. I fail to see how a 39W T5 bulb, or in my case, several arrays of 4, 39 W T5's overdriven by an Icecap ballast at 60W each (total of 240W) is "brighter" or penetrates deeper than several 250W, or in my case, 400W MH.

Keep in mind that my observations and opinions are based on a tank that is atypical. I run a rather large tank (560 g) and I'm trying to find optimum lighting solutions at minimum costs (bulb replacement). I do not consider electrical consumption in my decisions since I consider this a "cost of doing business" in the hobby. By that I mean, if you are weighing electrical costs in your decision matrix, you probably need to re-consider your reef tank hobby and go with FOWLR if cost of operation is a deal-breaker.

Aint this hobby fun?

Del

An Ice Cap T5 system will provide more PAR than a lot of 250 watt halides, Especially if you have a blue halide lamp. The blue T5 lamps produce about 10~15% less PAR than the daylights. The blue halides don't come close to the 10K's. They wont out do a good halide system like Lumenarc/Lumenmax style reflectors with good ballasts and 10K lamps but they will hang with or beat the average systems.

Of course when your tank doubles as a swimming pool (Del) you almost gotta use halides.