8 lamp T5: Looking for bulb suggestions

[drolic]

Hi all,
I have been a lurker here for a few months and have found you guys VERY helpful in starting my first reef tank. Thanks! But now I finally have to break down and ask my own questions. Lighting is confusing me.

I have a 110 with two 4 lamp Wavepoint 48" T5 fixtures over it. It is about 22" to sand bed and lights are about 5" above water line.

http://www.wave-point.com/Lighting_folder/Fixture4LampMain.html

The fixtures are running their stock bulbs and have about 4 months of burn time on them. Web site says "Each fixture has 2 SUN WAVE and 2 SUPERBLUE 460" but that does not mean much to me... does anyone know what these are? Any Good?

What I am really getting to here is... I have 8 bulbs and from what I read I would like to go with ATI as a replacement. But when I look at all the different color combos people recommend my head starts spinning.

The tank is mostly just frags right now, an acro, turbinaria, mushroom, favia, and zoa's. I have not bleached anything (yet) but am seeing very little growth. The coraline growth seems just ho-hum too.

Thanks in advance, and feel free to use small simple words to describe what your recommendation might be. :spin2:

 

[E.intheC]

what are the dimensions of the 110? that will make a difference. I'm assuming they're 4ft by 18front to back, by 30 Height? Take a look at the T5 Q+A Thread as well. Grim is very good with these questions.

 

[rtparty]

The ATI bulbs will be a big improvement but you are limited by your fixtures. Remove the splash guard and get some external fans to blow on the units. Wavepoint talks up a big game on how their units are sealed and run cool. When in reality, sealing them is the WORST thing you can do. A watt is a watt and those units get way too warm and ruin bulb life and output.

Keep all high light corals like SPS as high as you can in the tank.

I would go with 5 ATI Blue Plus, 2 ATI Purple Plus and 1 GE 6500k for bulbs.

 

[drolic]

Tank dimensions are below... (O.D.) Also like I said its about 22" to the sand. The two Wavepoints just fit on top under the canopy and leave about 2" on each side lengthwise.

Width: 54" (137.16cm)
Height: 23" (58.42cm)
Depth: 20" (50.8cm)

@rtparty
I agree with you, I would have done something different if I had not had one of the two given to me. Buying the other, to have a matched pair seemed like a good idea at the time. I do have them in a canopy, against mfg's recommendation. The two units just fit next to each other. Then I use three 120 mm PC fans to pull air in the sides and out the top of the canopy. This keeps them very cool as the wave point chassis is made out of extruded aluminum and conducts heat very well with the air flow over it. I can lay my hand on them and it feels just a few degrees above room temp.

 

[ati70cutlass]

t5 Q&A forum is the best place to start