I found a 100 watt light bulb better than my 175:mrgreen:

but realy though I got almost as high of a par reading from my 36" PC's as I did from my 175. I personaly wouldn't recomend a 175 for anything.

Steve

my setup was $459 for 6 bulb HO setup which included individual refectors for each bulb. BUt bulbs were not included with the unit and had to be purchased separately,in the end the total came out to like 500 something or 600 i can't remember exactly.

looking for light
 

does anyone know of a good t-5 unit that is not to expensive, i am on a student bugdet. are the corallife t-5 anygood.
i have a 70 gallion 51"x20"x16"

The Coralife T5s are not HO, not any better than the standard strip light that came with your tank...

If you guys follow the European reef sites, they're changing out the bulbs every 6 months - just like PCs, VHO, etc - That gets expensive. Don't forget they've been using T5HO for years, it's just started to trickle over into the US/Canada, don't assume that the "years of bulb life" quoted takes into account color shifts etc.

Andy

Odyssea makes a cheap unit, 48" long, external ballast, 2x 54W T5HO, i'd reccomend changing them yearly, the color will last longer in these than PC's, but dont expect miracles. good lumen output also, which is really what your after. an average T5HO (4') puts out about 5000 lumens, where your average VHO puts out 5400, and the T5 uses half the power of VHO's.

I run my T-5's with my ICE CAP 660 2 48" bulbs and man it s bright over my 170...
I love them great color too and the actinic's are realy bright too .

exee: Please post pictures of your tank lit by your T5's!

asmodeus: What bulb combination are you using? Those actinics, are they Pure Actinic or Actinic+?

I am running a 6 x 54W HO T5 retro kit that I built into a DIY hood. The whole setup with bulbs cost me $586, shipped from ReefGeek. I will take some pictures of my tank when I get a chance but I would love to see some other pictures of Canadian T5 powered reefs.

I am using 1 Daylight, 2 Actinic+ and 3 BluePlus(11000K) bulbs and I think my tank looks very bright, but also a little washed out. I wonder if I could supplement the T5's with 40 or 50 super bright blue LEDs... hmmm :mrgreen:

asmodeus, what are you using for reflectors for your t5s?

Well the bulbs are 12 K i bought them from Ivan on aquaria .ca.

THe reflectors that I'm using at the PFO reflectors i ahve 2 2' foot ones going the lenght they are screwed to gether works pretty good .

I aslo have the reflectro that i bought for them doug borrowed them and using them for his actinic's.. I loved them when i had them on my 62 gal.

the actinic that i ran were the pure actinic they were really bright too.