Sunlight Suppy Tek Light 8 bulb, 4' HO T5 fixture. REVISITED 6 MONTHS LATER

[exee]

I've been using the 6 bulb tek light system on my 72 gallon bowfront for the last 7-8 months and other than looking a little too big for my tank, i've been extremely pleased with it so far.

Just got my first acro on sale at Big Als last month as an experiment its whitish with blue tips and it seems to be coloring up nicely become more blue.

Running with 3 Aquablue +, to blueplus, and one daylight provides an excellent color for my tank, very crisp blueish white.

[kwirky]

yeah I have to say Albert's been good at giving advice for setting up this system.

Originally Posted by albert_dao

This thing can actually bleach SPS, so bear that in mind when adding new frags.

so then the softies I currently have (toadstool, xenia, chalice), how high do you think they should be in the tank? currently they're halfway

oh but man did my tank get hot running it 2 inches from the water surface. It spiked up 5 degrees fairenheight (sp?), so I raised it up to 10" from the surface to deal with it. Tomorrow I'm buying a clip on fan.

[KarlK]

I think I would like to see how your corals react to full light

[albert_dao]

Start softies on the bottom.

[Joe Reefer]

I like your rock work.

[kwirky]

Originally Posted by Joe Reefer

I like your rock work.

thanks . I cheated, and used a PVC pipe structure to hold up the arch.

Originally Posted by karlk

I think I would like to see how your corals react to full light

i'd rather play it safe, and NOT see how they react to full light quite yet in due time. Only half the lights are on so I don't bleach them. I ran them all on for about 45 minutes, but figured out quite quick I need a fan, or else the temperature skyrockets. in the process of rigging up an array of computer fans, so I'm all ready when I decide to flick the rest on.

[kwirky]

revisiting my review 6 months later...

old review: 4.5/5
new review: 4/5

Not much for trouble since i got it. I ran it without any actinics the entire time until a few weeks ago, and I think that's the reason for browning most of my coral. T5's are great because you can get any colour you want, because you can just change the ratio of the bulbs. This is a catch 22, though, because it's not easy to find the exact bulb combination you want IN STOCK at the LFS. True, I could order online, but I don't really want to deal with shipping insurance for broken tubes.

I had a slight problem ONCE with one of the ballasts not firing up. I had to unplug it and plug it back in. never had it happen since.

I would give it a 4.0/5 now, instead of a 4.5/5 because it's not actively cooled, and it doesn't ballance properly when hung from the ceiling. The ballancing issue was a slieght problem when I first got it, but to have to deal with it all the time since then, it's annoying.

As for it's performance, for my 24" deep tank, it's great for what I keep. I keep softies and most of my LPS at the bottom, as they'd bleach at the top. I'm going to try some SPS this summer, and we'll see how it goes for them.

I don't know if this fixture's quite enough for somone keeping only SPS. If one could get the fixture used, then it'd be worth it to swap the ballasts to ice caps (to overdrive the bulbs), and to cut holes in the top to actively cool it. then it'd be a kick ass unit for SPS. It's efficiency would go out the window, though, as it'd be consuming the same power as a similar PAR'd MH unit, but you'd have EXACTLY the colour you want.

Basically, this unit exceeds my needs ATM, until I get some SPS. It's been changed to a 4/5 because I think for those that keep SPS, it might be what they need, it might not. Has the potential to be a PAR beast though with some modifications