T5 lighting questions

[phi delt reefer]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

This ancient thread from aquaria.ca seems to suggest you just twist the 4 red wires together and run the lights in series if you want 2x110 out of 2 lamps. Would the same principle apply to 8x24w? The lights might actually be overdriven slightly.

http://aquariacanada.com/forums/showthread.php?t=244

Argh, my head is swimming. Need me an electrician to chime in methinks!

The wiring is the easy part. An electrical engineer maybe better suited to comment on how the ballast will react to multiple bulbs and bulb length.

Heres an additional thought on this subject;

the ballast spec advises this ballast is only good for 4x54w bulbs. If you have a look around MOST ballast manufacturers have a specific ballast for 24w/39w t5s and seperate one for 54w and higher. I believe this has something to do with how much energy the bulb needs to start (think of what happens when you run a larger power compact on a ballast rated for smaller bulb, it just flickers but never fully fires) In this scenario the bulbs may recieve too much juice on start up and possible fizzle or just not start. I could be wrong but there has to be reason for this difference. WH5s are rated for the 2 foot bulbs you are looking run and they can only run a total of 4 bulbs, the Wh8s can run 6.

Remember that a ballast can only start so many bulbs at once - this is also why you can not run 8 bulbs. A good example of this is the ICECAP 660 ballasts - they can run any combination of bulbs up to 16' in length as long as they DONT exceed 4 bulbs. Once again this relates to the amount of energy required to initially start the bulb.

You said you were running three halides - is there room to instead run two four foot t5s in the front of your tank and two at the back? you would have better coverage that way too. Also your cost goes down significantly for 4 foot bulbs dont cost twice that of a 2 foot bulb . 4 foot bulbs also have higher par than their smaller equivalents. Same goes for reflectors, the 2 foots ones arent half the cost of the 4 foot ones. Get the LET reflectors from the REEFGEEK site - they are the best in the industry.

here are the specs from the fullham site;

http://www.fulham.com/Detail_Categor...type=WorkHorse

on the right side of that site they have a bulb configuration/wiring diagram assistant. in the first dropdown select T5 Linear HO, in the second one you will see none of their ballast can drive 8xF24HO

one last thing (this is getting long, sorry ) - overdriving T5's throws off their spectrum - so if you go and pick up some nice actinics at a specific spectrum then overdrive them you wont get the "Advertised" colour you were looking for. Plus it reduces lamp life

cheers

vince