how many T5 on 660

[00nothing]

jsut like the title says i am curious as to how many t5's u can run on a 660 the reason i ask is a friend of mine has 4 vho's on her 90 and she would like to keep more corals than jsut the lps and softies she currently has my suggestions was to switch over to t5's using tek reflectors and ati bulbs

any input as to the whys and why nots she should do this and also before anyonen suggest it halide is definitly not an option theres no way she is going to rebuild her hood to accomodate them

[Phoneguy982]

4 4' bulbs. The 660's can run up to 16' of flourescent bulbs.

[mufret]

Another advantage of the t5/icecap combo is that the icecap will overdrive the 4 foot 54 watt bulb to approx. 80 watts per bulb.

[The Grim Reefer]

Get the Ice Cap T5 reflector instead of the Tek, good for an extra 20% PAR at 18" under the surface of my tank. Careful about acclimation though. I'd probably run the lights with the reflectors turned kind of sideways to cut down on the light at first. The reflector just clips on the lamp so it would be easy to do. Just move the reflectors a little each week for 3 or 4 weeks to acclimate things to the increase in light.

[00nothing]

For some reason i was sure that the 660 would drive more than 4 bulbs so this leaves me wondering wether or not the upgrade is worth it to go from 4 vho to 4 t5's on her 90 without adding any additional lighting

So do u think the upgrade to T5 would be worth it for her is this really enuff lighting for a 90

the other option would be to ditch the icecap all together this way she could sell her complete vho setup as s ystem and order this

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0603/00nothing/de32e05807b903344e15c3f830798cba.jpg


now i know a lot of people are not fond of the catalina aquariums lights but it has got to be better then 4 vho with no real reflectors i know the ballasts they use in these are workhorse so not to bad there but i have heard bad things about the bubls they come with but honestly for what u pay for the whole setup with bulbs the bubls are free anyways might as well buy good ones

whadddya think

[Phoneguy982]

I had 4 48" VHO's with URI bulbs on my 6' long 150 and it was pretty bright. Each bulb is 110W and overdriven 54W T5's are 80W. Now as far as par....from what I hear the T5's are visually brighter but those were from posts from people with the TEK light fixture. I haven't seen a tank lit by T5's in person but I can say from the URI VHO standpoint...it real nice. If I were to go back to flourescents from my metal halides, I'd do VHO's.

[The Grim Reefer]

Don't mess with the cheap T5's, get either Ice Cap, Tek or the Aqualux reflectors. Id grab a 2 light VHO ballast and run VHO actinics and run T5's on the 660.