The T5 Q&a Thread

[00nothing]

I have noticed a lot of questions recently regarding t5 lights and how many bulbs should i have for this setup, is this setup any good? I thought maybe we could gather all the information into a single thread in an effort to cut down on the same posts over and over as well as make it easier for people who are new to T5 to find this info, and if we can keep this thread jsut to the facts and not opinions regarding the equipment i feel that it would make it much easier for people to get the info the require

I will try to give some info here but i am also hoping that people will chime in with questions and try to keep them to this thread and perhaps our residnet T5 god will chime in and help with this ( Oh hey grim didnt realize u were watching lol)

first thing i will touch on is the t5 setups from aquauniverse.com as i own these and feel like i can give a good opinion on them I am going to take some points from another thread asking about these lights where i posted ( i have tried to remove any personal opinion as to give more fact in this thread rather than heresay)

They area great CHEAP alternative but you get what you pay for i know that my system is lacking in areas where perhaps a reefgeek setup would jsut kill but either way i like it. Areas where there is room for improvement:

first off the reflectors are jsut bent polished reflectors nothing like a tek or icecap reflector at all and they are hard mounted to the fixture so in order to swap them out u need to drill out all the rivets it has not been tested yet but i do believe it would be possible to swap these to a tek reflector

secondly my 2x39w which i have 2 of setup uses a single workehorse 5 ballasts now there some debate from what i have read about this ballasts reducing the life of the bulbs so what they are still gonna last a hell of a lot longer than vho or pc and the bulbs cost a lot less

third this is the one that a lot of people arent going to like these are not waterproof endcaps they are more like a tombstone style one except that its not fully open it has a protective shield sort of thing that turns as u turn the bulb to block things off

Another thing that people ask about a lot is what bulbs should i use if i have x number of bulbs well since the search feature is working for me tonight here it goes (all listings are front to back) these are all only recommendations some people may want more blue for appearence some may want more daylight for growth it is all amtter of personal opinion

4 bulb
Blue+
Aquablue
GE Sun
Blue+

6 bulb
Blueplus
Aquablue
Blueplus
GE Daylight or ATI Sun
Aquablue
Blueplus

8 bulb
I cant seem to find the 8 bubl recommendations but i believe it was the addition of one more daylight and one more blue plus perhaps grim can provide us with this info

Whats the diffrence between the bulbs:
Huge post and lots of info on this so i am giving the short version

aquablue special: this is an 11k bulb even though it is listed as blue it is more of a pure white bulb

Daylight or Sun bulb: there are 2 to choose from the ATI Sun bulb which is a 6k bulb and the GE daylight which is a 6500k bulb the GE is a cheaper bubl price wise and also provides more par than its ATI equivalant so it is more often recommended

blueplus: the blueplus is the alternative to an actinic bulb it combines the spectrum of an actinic as well as a pure blue to give your tank that nice glow and blue look to the water

Pure Actinic 03: not a very popular bulb as the true actinics do not provide the amount of blue that many people prefer (I have ture actinics after seeing the blueplus there is no comparison the actinics will be leaving asap)



okay well i just spent a bunch of time creating what i will will be a useful post but the only way its going to get there is if everyone ask the important questions here and once my hands stop cramping i will try and dig up some more Q&A