Made The Switch...

[daniella3d]

I think your midday bulb is not helping here. I know soneome with 6 T5Ho and his coral pop. He's using 4 x actinic, 1 figi purple and one 14,000k, no day light bulb.

I would exchange the midday for an actinic and maybe 2 figi is a little too much? but if you have sps it is said to make them color up nicely.

I have MH in one of my aquarium and T5HO in the other. I prefer MH for the shimer and it's very bright. So far I have put a few sps in the frag tank with the T5HO and still waiting to see if it is any good. I have only 4 bulb and use 2 x actinic, 1 figi purple and one 14,000k. I let only the 2 actinic early morning and evening so that really makes my coral pop with fluorescence. I have the full set on only during about 6 hours in mid day.

For my MH, I have 14000k plus 2 x actinic and I really like the look. My coral also have very nice color, espeicaly my sps.

Originally Posted by gobytron

Good old Craigslist...

Picked up a mint Tek T5 6 Bulb 48" fixture this weekend for a pretty good deal.

It came with
2 X Giesemann AquaBlue+ (15K)
2 X KZ Fiji Purple
2 X Giesemann Actinic+

I am switching over from
2 X 250W HQI Hamilton Reefstars (phoenix 14K)
4 X 110W VHO URI 454 Actinics

I immediately went out and picked up a Giesemann Midday bulb and swithced one of the Fiji Pinks out for it.

So far, I'm not liking the color in comparison to the old set up.
The vho's really lit my coral up and I don't think the t5's can really compare to them for phosphourescence pop.

I am leaning towards switching back to MH again, but it's only been a couple of days so we'll see.


Any comments from the t5 experienced on bulb choice/changes that might better match the Halide/VHO combo?


I DO like how the Tek fixture uses only 2 plugs (my halide/VHO uses 5 in total including the fan) and the Tex has an internal ballast, so my sump closet is less cluttered, not to mention the efficiency aspect.

[gobytron]

thanks for that...

[wingedfish]

So you went from 900+ watts to 300 watts? I'm having a tough time believing that your tank won't be shocked by the change. Aren't watts per lumen pretty close amongst today's bulbs? this would mean you dropped your light to a third.

[Bloodasp]

As far as i know T5's have higher lumen per watt compared to VHO