T5 Lighting ?

[Reef05]

I had a few questions about the pros and cons of T5 lighting. I have a 55 gal reef tank and need some new lighting. What should I get?

[Justin318]

Hey Will buy your lights from this website http://oceanencounter.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=OE&Product_Code=E2R&Category_Code=EVMHR

[Fuzzy]

We have T5's on our 90, what would you like to know?
IMO the pro's are long life, high output, small size, and very little heat.
Our tank is primarily softies and the growth is almost as good as when we had the MH/VHO lights.

The cons are nothing looks as good as a Metal Halide. The water just doesn't have the shimmer like they do under Halides.

HTH

Fuzz

[dannieboiz]

on the same note, I have 2x 175w 14k Mh. Currently already have ballast for 220w VHO or 110w PC. But since the T5 seems to have longer life span do you think adding the T5 would be more worth while than using the the VHO or PC and will be as good or almost as good?

[Fuzzy]

Having tried VHO,PC and now T5, I can say that I prefer the VHO Actinics with T5's 2nd. I'm not sure how to describe the look of VHO's - they just seemed to make the corals fluoresce. Especially the zoo's - the center sections would jump out at you under the VHO's.
That said if you are having any heat problems the T5's do run a lot cooler, draw less energy for the amount of light output, and last a lot longer. So I guess it's just a personal choice of how you want the tank to look.
In all honesty I would still like to have my MH/VHO lights - but we decided that running a chiller and the added electric costs just didn't make sense. Especially since we only have softies in our tank now and really didn't need the high intensity lighting.

Fuzz

[dannieboiz]

I bought myself a pair of 28w 36" t5 from Helios. I held it against the empty tank and was pretty disappointed with the light output. Maybe because there's no water and the black back ground. But my PC still seems much brighter than the t5 even when I tested it the same way.

[bennyinca]

dannie:
Your 28" 36" T5 is a normal output T5, it is very different than the T5 units that you will see as a primary light source in a reef tank.

On the other hand, a high output (HO) T5 gives 39W 36", even more watts if you overdrive with an icecap ballast.
But in order for T5 to be effective, it must have a single reflector per bulb.

[dannieboiz]

the LFS I bought it from also have the exact bulb with it's own reflector. They only have 48" HO-T5 bulb that do 56w. I might go back and exchange it for that, it's only 10 dollar more. But What's weird is that he has 3 of the regular 36" T5 like the one I bought in one of his displays, 1 actinic and 2 daylight and the actinic is already shot. Told me he had replaced the bulb twice in the past year already. So the longevity of it is still a debate I think. VS. my power compact that was used 6 years ago for 8 months before everything was taken down and powers right up recently. I replaced all the bulbs with new one now but they're still working to date and I'm keeping them for back ups. He also have the 36" standard T5 that has it's own reflector also about 10 bucks more than the one without the reflector I didn't see any difference when we tested them @ the store.