T5 Lighting May Be For You

[corywilson]

the tank is 24'' tall, but most of my mushrooms are 21'' below the surface.

[corywilson]

the tank is 24'' tall, but most of my mushrooms are 21'' below the surface.

[rjwilson37]

Yep, put your mushrooms down low and your SPS when you get some, put them up high.

[only1cookie]

This thread has inspired me to do some changes on my tank.

I am fairly new to salt, been doing it for 6 months now. Did fresh water for longer than I can remember. I have a 100 gallon, 60" long, 18" wide, 20" deep (top to sand). I have power compacts on it now (from my freshwater days) but want to order a tek T5 light fixture (MH are not an option at this time). Since the tank's an odd length, I know I will have gaps at the end that won't get as well lit. I mostly want to just do soft corrals (xenias, polyps, etc) because I like the movement of them ( & I figured the mushrooms can go on the ends that the bulbs don't reach), and maybe just a few sps for grins & giggles.

So, the biggest question= should I go with 6 or 8 bulb set up?

And what configuration/kinds of bulbs?

Please help out here...

Jackie

[The Grim Reefer]

6 lamps will be fine, just mount the light about 6" above the tank and you should get pretty good light to the ends.

[only1cookie]

Thank you TGR, that helped.
Now to go and order the fixture at ReefGeek!

Jackie

[rjwilson37]

Yep, the 6 bulb will work great for you, and 4-6" above the tank will work nicely with softies and some LPS. Put you SPS pretty close to the top if there Acro's, or middle to upper middle if there digitata's or cap's.

[corywilson]

I'm ordering my 48'' 6 bulb system today. Any recomendation as to the arrangement of the bulbs listed back to front?

[The Grim Reefer]

Usually put the Blue lamp in the front slot and mix the others to get the look you want. That is the fun of T5's, not only can you change the look using different lamps you can tweak it by just changing the positions.

[Ehydo]

I am using 8 bulbs. I have 3 blue 1 true actinic and 4 10000k. The color is great all of the time. I would suggest a similiar setup.

[katchupoy]

So RJ, did you switch back to T5? Sorry to bring this back thread up... i have been reading this for days now. And lots of info.

[rjwilson37]

I switched to using MH for my 90g, since it was 24" tall. I now just have an Aquapod 24g Nano at the moment. It is using the 64w PC lighting that comes with it, and is pretty much a softie tank for my Eel and some damsels.