Are you switching to T5

[Joe Reefer]

It seems a lot of people are running or switching to all T5's lately.
Are you planning on running just T5 lighting on any of your tanks in the future.

[mark]

Love to replace the NO fluorescents I'm using for dawn/dusk (with actinic) with a mix of T5s.

See no advantage to get rid of the MHs though.

Since first missed the JUST part, didn't vote.

[Joe Reefer]

I just noticed there was a typo in the poll title. Is there anyway to change that?

[michika]

I wanted to change, but the initial start up cost is so prohibitive at this point in time.

[andresont]

I switched about 3.5 moth ago and like it so far.
SPS color is very good. I can see the difference from 2x96Watt PC i had before.
I had brown miliporah SPS frag for long time it turned back to pink (very nice strong bright pink)
The other one (SPS frag) that was brown is dark green now, i also have bright red SPS frag that i got about two month ago and i already fragged it.

So i can say Yes to T5 (I got 36" long TEK T5 x6 bulbs , 39Watts each).
Bulbs are:
two pink "ProColor" K color unknown i think 6k but maight be even 3K.
one white 14 K ATI
two 60%blue 40%actinic bulbs ATI.

Overall coral growth is good i had to sell leather coral and some other because of space issues, SPS growth is not fast but noticeble good enough to enjoy it without a lot of fragging.
I also have light green with teal polyps leather and it had very hard time adjusting to that much more light compare to PC's. I had to move it few times and it is happy now in the corner where is less light.

Mushrooms do Not like that much light; open but not as wide. Rics OK but i think too much light also had to relocate to the side.

The only LPS i have is green torch and green frog spawn both, but i think i have too much flow for them in my tank and might be selling these corals soon..

I am not good with photography , but if anyone wants to come over and see this light fixture you are welcome.

[Delphinus]

I voted "no" but ... it's more of a "not completely". I will be running T5's in addition to halides. I hope for the best of both worlds this way.

I actually would consider going all T5 but at 30" depth I think I'll be happier with a combo.

I'll tell you one thing, I don't think that the costs of T5's are really that much less than halides, once you consider that by the time you add up all the watts and the replacement lamps, they're only marginally cheaper. However have you looked at the costs of T5's versus PC's? Wow, if nothing else, T5's will totally take over PC's in the marketplace, no question. That's my prediction anyhow :)

[Doug]

I put yes, as I already run them. I only have 4 HO T-5,s over my 90 and my sps has nice colours and decent growth, although not fast.

[Buddyboy]

Doug, do you find that a 4 bulb T5 fixture is enough over your 90 G tank? If you could do it again, would you get a 6 bulb T5 fixture instead? What fixture (retrofit) do you have?

Also, contrary to what some people believe, is it possible to have good SPS growth and color under T5 lighting?

[Doug]

Doug, do you find that a 4 bulb T5 fixture is enough over your 90 G tank? If you could do it again, would you get a 6 bulb T5 fixture instead? What fixture (retrofit) do you have?

Also, contrary to what some people believe, is it possible to have good SPS growth and color under T5 lighting?


I have the duel 4ft. SWC units. {SaltWater Connection, Winnipeg}. Yes, I think 6 would be better and I will likely add another fixture at some point. But also may not if everything is doing well. It would just increase growth rates, I assume. It would be neat to say, "look at this sps growth & colour with my 4 bulbs." I wont do so at the cost of any of the corals though. Because of my in tank skimmer, I cant now , unless it was a 3ft. fixture.

I am impressed with the way the corals are encrusting. Seems more so that than vertical growth. Coralline also seems to love the light. Of course, more time will tell how decent they really will be, including longevity of the bulbs. I run open top and keep them fan cooled. I believe there is a pic of them in last months FOTM, where the staff tanks were featured.

As a futher note, I like them better on this size tank then when I had halides. However if I moved and had a larger tank again, I would run halides and not the multiple banks of T-5,s some use.

[Jason McK]

I ran 4 bulb T5 on my frag tank and it quickly browned out all my SPS frags. I'm back to MH

[Patrick1]

I changed over, because of my profilux. I miss the shimmer effect of the MH but don't miss the heat of running cost. I am able to add more selection of color spectrum and can sit there and dial in all my lite settings. I am running 4x54 watts. I have the new fiji purple, attinic, a 6500, and a 10000. I am thinking of ditching the 6500 for a 14000. I still miss that shimmer it just draws people to the tank. I even look at my freinds store and can see MH and t5 running side by side. But yeah if your running deep tanks still MH.

[Buddyboy]

Looks like a mixed bag with T5's.

Maybe 6 bulbs would of been better for your setup Jason? Do you think it was the quantity of T5 light or the quality?

Has anyone else experienced brownouts with their SPS when switching to T5s? If I make the plunge I would like to know I could try SPS in the future.

How is the dimmable T5 lighting Patrick????? It must be awesome!!! Do you find 4 x 54W is enough for your tank? What kind of coral are you keeping?

[fkshiu]

I wanted to have my cake and eat it to so I'm running T5/MH/VHO all at the same time!

[Joe Reefer]

I get the feeling that T5 lights are the new power compacts, don't get me wrong I supplement with T5 but as far as going all T5, my opinion is changing.

[BC564]

I'm running the Aquactinics Constellation 7 bulb HO T5's and the tank is very happy. The corals all have great color and are growing well....I only have one sps and it is very green. Anyone who drives down my street im sure thinks I'm doing hydroponics. lol

[Doug]

I ran 4 bulb T5 on my frag tank and it quickly browned out all my SPS frags. I'm back to MH


What size tank was that on Jason?

[Der_Iron_Chef]

I get the feeling that T5 lights are the new power compacts, don't get me wrong I supplement with T5 but as far as going all T5, my opinion is changing.

Why do you have a feeling that T5 lights are the new power compacts? And what is changing your opinion, exactly?

[Jason McK]

What size tank was that on Jason?

It was a 30G tank. Now in T5 defence I wasn't running the HO version. In fact I didn't do a lot of research on T5 and just bought the Tech fixture from Sunlight supply

J

[Der_Iron_Chef]

It was a 30G tank. Now in T5 defence I wasn't running the HO version. In fact I didn't do a lot of research on T5 and just bought the Tech fixture from Sunlight supply

J

Well, yeah. Definitely an apples to oranges thing going on. Like comparing a high quality MH bulb with an $8 ebay special.

[Jason McK]

Are these HO or not
http://www.jlaquatics.com/phpstore/store_pages/details/l-fl-hood2.php?product_ID=sl-t5nw2404

[Der_Iron_Chef]

No idea :)

[Veng68]

those are HO 24 inch T-5's

Cheers,
Vic [veng68]

[Jason McK]

Well that's what I had that browned out all my SPS frags.


I thought they were HO but didn't want to go off on T5 without the facts

J

[Der_Iron_Chef]

But there are TONS of other people who exclusively use HO T5 bulbs and have brilliant SPS in their tanks.

[Joe Reefer]

Why do you have a feeling that T5 lights are the new power compacts? And what is changing your opinion, exactly?

Me being an sps guy, my opinion is probably very biased towards keeping that type of coral. I know there is amazing "T5" sps tanks out there but if the majority is trying it and having mixed results (less than great). I feel that maybe T5's should be left for the tanks with lower light requirements. There are so many variables that can come into play. How far from the light are your sps corals?

How is the LPS growth on everyones T5 tank?

[Patrick1]

I find my 72 not too deep so there is excellent light penetration right to the bottom. Infact I had to turn them down. I am running them right now at 70% or less. I build my own canopy so all the light is focused into the tank where it belongs. I have been watching T5 for a while now on some display tanks at Golds and their SPS is excellent. I went in pointed at one of the tanks and said I want that color. Then made a few changes I like the purple in the evening, just like a real sunset. I am going to upgrade to independant ballasts after the newyear.. As for the coral I am keeping right now I have just shut down my old tank and have only been running the new system for 9 weeks now and I leave on holidays in a month so my coral stock will be minimal until after the newyear. I will keep you posted on my results in a few months.

Looks like a mixed bag with T5's.

Maybe 6 bulbs would of been better for your setup Jason? Do you think it was the quantity of T5 light or the quality?

Has anyone else experienced brownouts with their SPS when switching to T5s? If I make the plunge I would like to know I could try SPS in the future.

How is the dimmable T5 lighting Patrick????? It must be awesome!!! Do you find 4 x 54W is enough for your tank? What kind of coral are you keeping?

[Doug]

I wish I could take close up pics to show the growth & colours in my corals. However Mike has been over and can vouch for the difference, as it was 2 months since he last seen my tank.

Whats a halide? So many of them, just saying I would use halides instead is a broad statement. I ran 175w 14K,s over another aquarium and they cant even compare to my T-5,s. Not even my 250 14k over my 45g cube did as well as these. Darned if I know.

When we say this though, what other factors come into play. Who knows. Why are some having success and some not? Same as every other aspect of our hobby I guess. Like BB or DSB. :lol:

I played with T-5,s before but always went back to halides and even participated in a thread where I agreed the halides were better for the corals. However I have never given the 4ft. HO,s a fighting chance, which is what I,m doing now.

Why a reference to compacts? Maybe these are no comparison. Why would sps corals not grow under enough light of any kind? Its like the old saying they dont do well under vho lights, yet a few years ago, a friends 120, lit with 6- 4ft. vho bulbs would make you cry if you seen the colours in his sps. Now thats 6- 110w bulbs compared with 4 or 6 54w bulbs. Again, I dont have an answer. He now has a larger tank and runs 400w halides. He would use 6ft. vho bulbs if he switched but he would never go back to T-5 bulbs, that he ran on it before. Mind you he only ran 4 sets of 3 fts. So 8-3ft. HO bulbs. He to thought they were great at the start but in the end, basically threw them away. :lol:

I will be interested to see how Mike,s does under the 8 bulb fixture in comparison. Now how the heck can that not be enough light in a 24in. deep tank? Wholey mackeral.

I know mine are doing well now and only time will tell what success they will be. I have 4 clams and they are doing great, except for my fight with pinched mantle. I do know, that I watch my corals closely for change or colour loss. At least I have not had any that bleached like under my halides. :lol:

All that being said, success will be when or if my tank & sps ever look like Jason,s or others running their halides. Hard to argue against that. :D

[clipperfish]

I run both Mh and t5 use t5 for dawn and dusk , and two 400w mh raduim 20,000k for daylight .

[fishoholic]

Looks like a mixed bag with T5's.


Has anyone else experienced brownouts with their SPS when switching to T5s? If I make the plunge I would like to know I could try SPS in the future.



We had 3 sps frags under our t5 lights in our 120g and they all started to die off. We moved them to our 30g that has MH and they all made an amazing come back plus have grown like crazy.

[Snappy]

I like the MH look but I did recently add a T5 fixture into the mix. I thus answered no to the question as I am not switching but just using them as a supplemental light source.

[Snappy]

Lando,
here's a couple of links on the T5 vs MH debate that also touch on some other interesting aspects of the coral colour equation.
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1252186
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1230776&perpage=25&pagenumber=1
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1083336&perpage=25&pagenumber=1

[Doug]

Although a successful aquarists for a long time, sps have never been good to me, so my relating to their progress may be somewhat tainted. :lol:

I wonder if all the encrusting and lack of vertical growth, has something to do with less intense lights or is this just the natural progression.

I,m happy with the T-5,s over my 4ft. tank and as mentioned may add another set. Also as I mentioned before, if I went back larger, like a 6ft. I would go back to halides, likely a pair of 400,s or a single 400 over a 180 cube or something. I still own my 45g cube and if I went back to it for some reason, I would also run a single halide there, likely a 175w Iwasaki 14K or Ushio 10K.

Likely all my sps would then crap out or something though. :lol:

[danny zubot]

Although I've seen a clear improvement in my corals by adding T5 actinics, I will not switch completely. I understand there are some really successful tanks out there that run soley on T5's, but I can't give up MH because of the shimmer they give in the water.

[kwirky]

*sigh* here we go again on the T5 vs. MH

You should have a poll option of "I've had both and think they're both good"

I'd say if you already have MH don't switch, not worth it. If you want to replace your PC or VHO bulbs, whether they're your sole lights or for supplementation, then they're great. Time it though for when you have to replace all your PC bulbs to squeeze a little extra $$ out of your investment. If you're upgrading from PC or VHO though I think T5 and MH are bringing different things to the game. It's like a football team and a hockey team meeting up to play some basketball lol.

MH's are great when lighting SQUARE areas. the latest reflectors are great and make MH's the most efficient I believe when lighting a tank that can be divided up into square areas (ie: 4'x2' = 2 lights. 6'x3' = 2 lights on good reflector)

T5's are great for awkward tanks. For instance a tank 6'x1' would be better off using four 6' long T5 bulbs than 3 MH's.

T5's are much better at reaching all the areas of your tanks. MH's are point sources so you can only really put corals where the rock isn't causing shadows. It's pretty hard to find shadow areas in a tank lit strictly with T5's. This can be a disadvantage too though depending on your rockwork if you have the need to put something in "low light" areas.

efficiency per watt is not important with our current energy prices (here in calgary anyways) because the bulbs need to be changed more often.

MH's can reach deeper. T5's are still flourescent so their efficiency drops past 24" of water or so.

When people say T5's produce "less heat" from my own experience it's not quite true. T5's produce a LOT of light and I found in my tank the light would be converted to heat when it hits the rocks. I had a LOT of heat in my 120g tank lit only with T5's.

Oh and I bleached a lot of coral with T5's. Nothing could be kept in the top 8" of the 24" tall tank without it bleaching. MH's on the other hand, you have the top "corners" of the tank where the coral's still like 16" away from the light bulb making it easier to have corals at the top extremities of the tank.

Sorry it's a long "shpeel" but I think the argument of "t5's vs mh" should be taken neutrally, since they bring different things to the table. And I do NOT believe T5's are a fad, I think they're here to stay, only they won't be "replacing" mh lighting.

I've kept softies and lps in a 120g (48x24x24) tank lit with 8 T5 bulbs (teklight unit). Now I have an sps nano lit with a 14k 150W HQI and PC actinics (that's being upgraded though cuz it's a 2' fixture over a 3' tank). My dream tank is 36x36x24 lit with a single 400W 14k aquatinic mogul MH on a lumenarc reflector. Very efficient watts/gallon I think. One day I'll have a big tank again. One day...

[albert_dao]

:P

T5 works.

Korallen Zucht in Germany uses exclusively T5's.

http://www.zeovit.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11269

Let's get a couple things into perspective here:

1. Both sources of light are viable for SPS tanks.
2. T5 is VERY functional and NOT inferior to MH when it comes to coloring and growth of SPS species.
3. All tanks are different, as are the inhabitants of those tanks. One person might experience a brownout when switching to T5, another might experience an increase in colors:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1010256&perpage=25&pagenumber=1

http://www.zeovit.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9125 - Check out JWRE's post.

You CANNOT go wrong with either if you plan well from the start. Switching is a game of 50/50.

Edit: Also keep in mind the different types and combinations of bulbs available to each medium. There ARE garbage bulbs and combinations. Don't kid yourself.

[Jason McK]

Cool thanks Albert for the links. I'll have to book mark them

J

[StirCrazy]

I am trying them on my fresh water planted tank, I'll let you know what I think when I have had them more than a week

Steve

[Samw]

That's interesting. I wonder if I will see any benefits of T5 in my 3'x1' tank. Currently, I have 2x150W HQI for a total of 300W of MH. If I go with T5, I can fit a max of 6 lights x 39W for a total of 234W of T5. I would love to find out which is a better setup between these two.

[danny zubot]

That's interesting. I wonder if I will see any benefits of T5 in my 3'x1' tank. Currently, I have 2x150W HQI for a total of 300W of MH. If I go with T5, I can fit a max of 6 lights x 39W for a total of 234W of T5. I would love to find out which is a better setup between these two.
__________________

So many people mis-associate quantity and quality. With the correct bulb configuration you might find that 234 watts of T5 will be better than the 300 watts you currently have. I have 1x 12K 400 watt MH over my tank but didn't really get decent color in my corals until I added 2x 39 watt actinics. They are the true actinics too, not the cheep blue colored ones.

My next tank (36x36x20") will have the same MH but I will add 2 more of the same actinics. I'm convinced that T5's are a very viable light souce, the only down fall is that they don't shimmer.

[Samw]

I'm not saying that it is or isn't better because of quantity. I'm just hoping to come across some more data on it so that I can make an informed decision before I decide to switch or not.

[littlesilvermax]

I wanted to have my cake and eat it to so I'm running T5/MH/VHO all at the same time!

Me too!:mrgreen:

[Lance]

Have 4 - T5s on my 90 gal reef and 2 on 70 gal FW community. Happy with both set-ups, but may add MH to reef in future. Tank has only been running for 3 months

[digital-audiophile]

Just switched out my 2x150MH for a 6bulb tek unit today. So far I like it :) Nice and light, so very little heat being thrown off. The colours are nice and I like that I can fine tune it. The only thing after a few hours that I don't like is that I miss the MH shimmer :(

Since it's only one day I can't be positive if I made the right decision (I was also thinking of changing into 2x250MH) but I guess time will tell eh?

[Brent F]

I've heard you can add a clear LED to get a shimmer without the heat. I'm not sure how MH looking it would be though.

[fencer]

Anything that has a point source will shimmer

[JHG]

I have a 28G nano and am just waiting for my Nova Extreme T5HO 24" fixture to arrive. I plan on using it in conjunction with one other NO actinic bulb.

[Lance]

I added a 10k 250W MH to my T5's, and I have to say I like the look of the tank better now (90 gal corner bowfront) The shimmer from the MH is so much nicer than the straight T5 look. I'm now running 18K T5, Pure Actinic T5and the 10K MH Ushio.

[jasond]

Hey Lance, do you mind if I ask how you added your MH? Pendant? I have a Aquatinics TX5 light, which is a great light, but I would LOVE to get some shimmer happening, and dont really want to buy a whole new fixture. Any ideas?

[mildcustom2]

Never!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Metal Halide all the way.:biggrin:

[Lance]

Hey Lance, do you mind if I ask how you added your MH? Pendant? I have a Aquatinics TX5 light, which is a great light, but I would LOVE to get some shimmer happening, and dont really want to buy a whole new fixture. Any ideas?

PFO Lighting Mini-Pendant from J&L. I built a small frame for the light to sit on It is about 6" above the surface, and adds very little heat. I'll post some pictures tonight so you can get an idea.

[Lance]

Hey Lance, do you mind if I ask how you added your MH? Pendant? I have a Aquatinics TX5 light, which is a great light, but I would LOVE to get some shimmer happening, and dont really want to buy a whole new fixture. Any ideas?

Here are some pics of the pendant on the tank. Top view shows the light sitting on a stainless steel grid inset into a wooden frame. I don't know how you would go about this setup on a rectangular tank. My 90 gal. is a corner bow front with 36" of depth. I took out the back row of T5's for the pendant.
Anyhow this is what I did, good luck.

http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii158/lancelot57/tank.jpg

http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii158/lancelot57/front.jpg

http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii158/lancelot57/light.jpg

[jasond]

That looks great! I had not seen those little pendants, I may have to look into one and figure a way to mount it. Nice thing is you still get the color of your T5, but have some shimmer, and a place where you can more easily put your SPS. Thanks for the pics, awesome looking tank!