What Lighting?

[tang daddy]

IMO 400w mh for my old 65g was enough light to grow sps it all depends on what kind of sps you are trying to grow if digi and monti t5 is good. If you look at the euro tanks they all run t5 but keep in mind that they run 8-10 t5 at 84w ea that's comparable to us running 2x250 or 2x400 with t5 supplementation I currently run 1000w for a 120g and find it suffiecient also if you run t5 for your tank and wish to have sps thrive then you need awesome flow and to feed the sps with ultralith or similiar types aswell as prodibio.

[DanG]

If you're unhappy with the giesmann bulbs, check ATI or URI bulbs. They're the ones I'm using and they have great colour output and I've had them for a bit more than 6 months without any hint of yellow.

[Der_Iron_Chef]

I love the KZ (Korallen-Zucht) T5 bulbs. I added just one Fiji Purple and it made a real difference. That's the true genius of T5

[Pan]

I thought the genius of T5 was there energy savings and money savings

If i every go for more lighting than the MH pendant for the big tank I am going to buy T5, but I am going for a spotlighted type thing in a big tank, wish to see how it works out.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by 'Ol Nobodaddy

I thought the genius of T5 was there energy savings and money savings

not really, you end up having to put more wattage over the tank and still have less intensity, better and more even coverage, but less intensity.

tank a 2X2 tank as an example, 1 250 watt MH will light the heck out of it.

it would take say 12 T5's to evenly light it, which works out to 288 watts.

now going from the same perspective a MH pendant could be raised to light a 3X3 area at about the same intensity as a T5 set up sitting right on the top. in this situation the MH would be way more power friendly for the same intensity as even if you used 12 bulbs, and stretched them out a bit, it would be 468 watts.

also when you look at time for bulb replacement, at a 1 year interval the MH would be say 80 to 100 bucks a year buying locally, 12, T5 bulbs would be 252.00 (24" bulbs) to replace (and that is a J&L prices which are about 15 bucks a bulb cheaper than the Island) say you do your T5's every 18 months the MH is still cheaper to replace. so for me it would be 384.00 to replace 12 T5 bulbs, also the chemical pollution of disposing of that many bulbs is way worse so environmentally the less bulbs we can get away with the better.

Steve

[Pan]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

not really, you end up having to put more wattage over the tank and still have less intensity, better and more even coverage, but less intensity.

tank a 2X2 tank as an example, 1 250 watt MH will light the heck out of it.

it would take say 12 T5's to evenly light it, which works out to 288 watts.

now going from the same perspective a MH pendant could be raised to light a 3X3 area at about the same intensity as a T5 set up sitting right on the top. in this situation the MH would be way more power friendly for the same intensity as even if you used 12 bulbs, and stretched them out a bit, it would be 468 watts.

also when you look at time for bulb replacement, at a 1 year interval the MH would be say 80 to 100 bucks a year buying locally, 12, T5 bulbs would be 252.00 (24" bulbs) to replace (and that is a J&L prices which are about 15 bucks a bulb cheaper than the Island) say you do your T5's every 18 months the MH is still cheaper to replace. so for me it would be 384.00 to replace 12 T5 bulbs, also the chemical pollution of disposing of that many bulbs is way worse so environmentally the less bulbs we can get away with the better.

Steve

I stand...well sit sipping tea...corrected guess i'm not going to switch.

[Myka]

The T5 bulb replacement is what eats ya! T5s aren't cheaper than MH. That is not why I'm leaning towards them. The main two reasons I am leaning towards T5 instead of MH is bulb color choices, and heat.

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

tank a 2X2 tank as an example, 1 250 watt MH will light the heck out of it.

it would take say 12 T5's to evenly light it, which works out to 288 watts.

I don't think this is accurate. I'm actually going to take a closer look at PAR levels in the ole MH/T5 debate, but I'm pretty sure that comparing W to W you need a bit less T5 to get the same intensity as the MH. One 250w MH over a 24x24x24" I think would be far less PAR than twelve 39w T5s. I can't even imagine how bright twelve T5s would be over that space!!! I actually don't think it would fit.

I have seen several VERY nice SPS Euro tanks lit by 6-8 W per gallon with 24-30" depth.

Originally Posted by tang daddy

also if you run t5 for your tank and wish to have sps thrive then you need awesome flow and to feed the sps with ultralith or similiar types aswell as prodibio.

Flow is not a problem, and is about the easiest and cheapest thing to provide for them. I do plan on running some sort of supplementation system. I'm leaning towards ZEOvit right now, but I'm not keen on the daily maintenance of it. Looking at options right now. I currently do feed the ZEOvit Amino Acids, and SeaChem Reef Plus (at 10% dosage). I have noticed quite a difference upon adding each additive, which I did at different times.

Originally Posted by DanG

If you're unhappy with the giesmann bulbs, check ATI or URI bulbs. They're the ones I'm using and they have great colour output and I've had them for a bit more than 6 months without any hint of yellow.

Awesome! I was going to try ti URI next, so it's good that there are some good reviews from them. I was really disappointed in the yellowing I've gotten from my Giesemann bulbs.

Originally Posted by Der_Iron_Chef

I love the KZ (Korallen-Zucht) T5 bulbs. I added just one Fiji Purple and it made a real difference. That's the true genius of T5

I haven't seen this brand of bulbs (but they have supplements don't they?) around here. I'll send an email to J&L...see if they can track em down.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Myka

I don't think this is accurate. I'm actually going to take a closer look at PAR levels in the ole MH/T5 debate, but I'm pretty sure that comparing W to W you need a bit less T5 to get the same intensity as the MH. One 250w MH over a 24x24x24" I think would be far less PAR than twelve 39w T5s. I can't even imagine how bright twelve T5s would be over that space!!! I actually don't think it would fit.

actually, it is very accurate, I took my PAR meter down to Safari pets and did a direct comparison between PC/T5/MH the 250 watt MH still had almost twice the PAR at twice the distance, and yes it was high output T5. I will say though that the T5 impressed me enough for me to buy one and put it on my fresh water planted tank as it had 40% more output as the same size of PC.

If you do a search on "watt per gallon" you are going to see a lot of rants from me about it as it is a totally useless measurement and or comparison that in no way relates to anything except the exact same type of lighting at the exact same color temp on the exact same dimension tank.

I usually ignore this but there is a lot of people using this lately that are fairly new to the board, so I will explain it again for there benefit.

first some preamble.

no matter how many lights you add you will not increase the intensity of the light unless you go to a different type of lighting. what you will do is spread the same intensity level over a larger area and create a more even lighting.

Intensity of the light is its penetrating power at a specific distance. When we measure PAR we are measuring the intensity not the total amount, because the total amount means nothing unless it has the power to punch down to the depth you need.

this is why you can grow SPS under NO lights in very shallow tanks, but you can't in deeper tanks.

so on to watt/gal

lets say we have a 100 watt light bulb on a 33 gal tank, thats 3.03 watt per gal, right

so lets look at a classic 33 gal tank 18" tall, then look at my 33 gal tank it is 22.5" tall, and finally lets look at a tank that is 36" tall, 18" wide and 12" front to back (tall 33) they all have the same "watt/gal, but do you think you could grow SPS at the bottom of the 36" tall one? but now if we upgraded from 100 watts of NO to 100 watts of T5 we could maybe get something in the middle tank if we did put it to deep, but still the last example would take more punch.

Which is where MH come in.. the intensity of a MH is not matched by tubs in any way. The MH can penetrate farther down, which is what really matters to us. Do you necessarily need this power, no, but you might

If you want to keep high light corals on the middle of your tank then yes T5's will be good, but if you want to keep some on the bottom of your tank, you will be better off with MH.

take an example from the planted fresh water tank forums, they start out with shop lights and low light plants, then they add better lights (T8's) and find they need CO2. so they get plants that are higher light plants and find light is the limiting factor, so they upgrade to VHO/PC/T5's and use more CO2. but for the deeper tanks T5 HO's arn't even enough when you add CO2 as light becomes the limiting factor again, then they add MH and growth explodes again which shows that a MH will deliver more PAR at depth than T5's. the question remains though... how much punch do you need. Personally I do not think T5's are a long term solution for deep tank in any way other than color supplement. I have the T5's on my fresh water tank (22" deep) and my carpet plants are growing at about 1/2 the speed that they are in the pet shop on a 24" deep tank running MH.

Steve

[fishoholic]

Now that I think about it our SPS might of done poorly because of all the other types corals we have in our tank. Chemical warfare was probably more to blame then the lights.

[Myka]

Originally Posted by fishoholic

Now that I think about it our SPS might of done poorly because of all the other types corals we have in our tank. Chemical warfare was probably more to blame then the lights.

Chemical warfare sucks. Don't forget your carbon! Speaking of which...

My AquaClear (which runs my carbon and PhosBan) wasn't working today so I ripped it apart, cleaned it out, and put it back together. Upon doing so I realised I was not running any carbon, and my PhosBan hasn't been changed for a couple months. Now that I have both of those changed, my water isn't looking yellow. So..............it wasn't the Giesemanns yellowing out on me after all. LOL!