[Binare]

Wattage is a useless measurement for lighting, all it tells me is how much I’m going pay to light my tank, watts is what the utility company charges me on.... has no bearing or effect on how much light is produced. Lumens per watt, however tells you the efficacy of a lamp. I’ll use 4’ T5@28W, T5HO@54W and T8@32W for an example.

T8 at 32W gives 89.1 LPW (lumens per watt) @8,000 hours, so at 32x89.1 you get a total of 2851.2 lumens from 1 lamp. Rated life is 24,000 hours. Ambient operating temperature of 25 C.
T5 at 28W gives 96.3 LPW@8,000 hours, so at 28X96.3 you get a total of 2696.4 lumens from 1 lamp. Rated life of 20,000 hours. Ambient operating temperature of 35 C.

T5HO at 54W gives 86.1 LPW@8,000 hours, so at 54X86.1 you get 4649.4 lumens from 1 lamp. Again rated for 20,000 hours. Ambient operating temperature of 35 C.

The physical benefits of T5 over T8 is size of bulb, allowing us to fit more light in a smaller space... and operate at a much higher temperature for the given efficiacy.

4 T8s at 32W = 128W@12 hours a day = 1536 watts used per day, my utility company would charge me about $5.53 a month to run these bulbs.

4 T5s at 28W = 112W@12 hours a day = 1344 watts used per day, my utility company would charge me about $4.83 a month to run these bulbs.

4 T5HOs at 54W = 216W@12 hours a day = 2592 watts used per day, my utility company would charge me about $9.33 a month to run these bulbs.

If a T8 bulb is $15.00 and I buy 4 and change em out every year, it will have cost me $126.36 every year in power and replacement.

If a T5 bulb is $25.00 and I buy 4 and change em out every year, it will have cost me $157.96 every year in power and replacement. I’m paying about 20% more to get 5% less light output then a T8.

If a T5HO bulb is $30.00 and I buy 4 and change em out every year, it will have cost me $231.96 every year in power and replacement. I’m paying about 45% more to get about 40% more light output then a T8.

The benefits of T5HO over T5 is only about more light in the same space, but at a higher cost. Quick glance at the math above might even prove ill get more light for cheaper by running 5 T5s over 4 T5HO and give me the added benefit of having more color choices.

The benefits of T5 over T8 are realized when maintenance is done properly, ie changing closer to rated life atleast 2-4 years and NOT paying the over rediculious price we pay for bulbs, usually about 10X the cost of these bulbs in a commercial application. A T5’s efficacy is much higher, it produces much more light over its entire lifespan then a T8 will. By undercutting the lifespan, your actually not gaining a whole hell of alot.

T5VHO compounds the cost to benefit ratio, there isn’t nearly as much info for T5VHO at this point, and its a little early in IMO to be jumping on the bandwagon... could cost you more in the long run then that shiny new skimmer or that rare coral you saw at the LFS and for what? A little bit more light with alot more maintenance cost?

Getting into T5VHO will you give you a higher operating temperature and more light in the given space but even less lumens per watt then a T8 I’m sure....
T5VHO is great for warehouses and such that cram lots of bulbs into a very small space sometimes 30’ feet in the air, changing them is expensive, the less often it needs to be done the better, labour costs are cheaper, but equipment costs and cost to run goes way up. Over the course of a warehouse changing out hundreds of bulbs at a time, they will save some money for sure. We however running 2-6 lamps at a time, will never recoup the cost to benefit in buying that equipment. If you got money to burn and like saying you have the latest greatest in lighting technology... then buy it up, eat up all the hype, the aquarium companies are counting on that, and it works beautifully... no one can argue that.

I wrote this pretty quick, I’m sure there is errors, but the point remains, I’ve been doing commercial and industrial lighting for years... all I’m offering here is why I make the decisions I do.