t5 vs pc - Page 2

Reefer Rob · #11 07-18-2006, 05:44 PM

Don
To answer your question, 2 T5 tubes that will fit the length of you tank would probably match the light that you have, but I think you would be happier with 4. You will need to acclimatize your tank using window screens, and you will go through a new tank syndrom, but in the end you will be happy with the results.

some things that happened when I switch from PC to T5:

brown and rust colored zoo changed to grey centre with orange fringe
brown zoo with slight blue tint that was not doing well is now recovering and spredding, and is blue with green fringe
one ricordia faded quite a bit, but recovered to way better colors that before
I lost a couple of heads from my blastomussa, but the rest are holding
my branching hammer looks like it wants to take over the world

the top 2" of coraline on back wall cooked (back wall is all clean now- looks better)

I still smarts that I paid a lot of money for a Coralife 2 X 65 fixture that is a peice of crap IMO, and gave me brown corals. All the LFS are now carrying T5 fixtures that cost not much more than PC fixtures. IMO PC lighting is not a viable light souce for growing colorful corals.

Rob

muck · #12 07-18-2006, 05:46 PM

Got any pics of your tank and corals Rob?

TheReefGeek · #13 07-18-2006, 05:47 PM

You should also spend some time researching which color combination of bulbs you want.

Rob maybe you have some ideas here, what are you running for color temperatures?

Reefer Rob · #14 07-18-2006, 05:47 PM

I'll try to take a few and post this week.

Rob

Reefer Rob · #15 07-18-2006, 05:51 PM

I run 4 aquablue and 2 blueplus. I tried 50/50 aquablue/blueplus, as many others do, but found it too blue for my taste- it's all a matter of personal preference.

Rob

midgetwaiter · #16 07-18-2006, 06:51 PM

I'm using 2 Coralife dual T5 strips (2x14w normal output) on my 20 gal and 1 strip on my 13 gal (15" high). I started with them on my old 15 because I got a really good deal on them and after upgrading the tank I'm sticking with them anyway because I'm pretty happy with them.

There is something with T5s that leads to greater intensity than you get out of PCs or thicker fluorescent tubes. I've had more than one reefer actually look at my tank and then turn to me and say, "T5s? really?" I think they they just do a good job of emitting light over the entire length of the tube, something you don't get out of regular NO or VHO tubes. Whatever it is it works.

I don't keep anything that requires really high light levels but have been successful with softies, xenids, zoas, mushrooms frogspawn, open brains and ricordias. Nothing you couldn't keep with PCs too but IMO the T5s do it better. My pink zoas which are real light lovers are going crazy.

One of the drawbacks I've found are that the lamp intensity seems to be really high for the first hundred hours or so. It's normal to see a sharp decline in output during this time but in seems to be a big change with these fixtures. I bleached a BTA and a ricordia with a new fixture a while ago. Be careful changing lamps. The actinic bulbs they come with really suck too, they don't put out much at all. I switched mine with 20000k blue bulbs and am much happier. T5 actinics in general don't have a great rep. Non coral things like macros and coraline don't seem to like these much either.

In your case I'd probably not recommend you bother upgrading with these unless you went for HO T5s with individual reflectors. I don't think you'd see enough of a change over the PCs you have to justify the expense. A Tek fixture with 3 or 4 HOs would be a pretty big improvement though.

StirCrazy · #17 07-18-2006, 10:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reefer Rob

. If you know of an SPS tank being kept under PC lighting I would like to see it, so far I have not been able to find one.

Rob

My reef was a PC SPS tank befor I went to MH. I had very good sucess.

No there is a trick you can do which I am playing with or was till I took that tank down and if anyone in town has true HO T5's let me know so I can do a measurment on them (I suspect the local LFS' only have NO T5's) when I was doing was running my PC's at HO levels and there wasa big difference and after 2 years there was still good output.

I have also seen nice sps tanks under VHO and even NO, but what I have not seen is a two year old T5 tank with mature corals over a year old in it. this would be a good indacator of how they do.

Likehave said in previous tests is that the benifit to T5's is that you can cram more under the hood and get even more even lighting than with other types.

Steve