Another Lame T5 question

[Catharsis70]

I have PC lighting over my 33 long reef (48x13x13) and I want to swith to T5HO. Right now I have a 2x65 Coralife Retro with 50/50 bulbs and 2x40 NO T12 50/50's (URI). From what I have read about T5 being so much more efficient than PC I am in hopes I can use less bulbs. I am growing lots of softys as well as an open brain. What would those with experience suggest? I will be going with SLR's from IceCap and The Coralife ballasts.

 

[REMF]

I truly don't think your softies will be to happy in a 13" deep tank with T5's. I know mine are not in a 20" tank. You might be ok with just 3 bulbs.

Read THIS first, it is very informative about T5's.

 

[Catharsis70]

Maybe it isnt worth the change. I try to practice "if it aint broke" but the energy consumption savings looked inviting. Anyone else use T5HO or even T5NO on a shallow tank?

 

[UCanDoIt]

Your PC lighting setup is fine for what you are keeping. T5s might be too intensive for your soft corals.

 

[The Grim Reefer]

You could go with the coralife normal output T5's and be fine. 2 of the 2 lamp fixtures would cover that tank nicely and use a little over 100 watts of power.

 

[Catharsis70]

I am unsure what I am going to do. I will post back when I figure it out. thanks for the input all.

 

[sales weasel]

You could try the Helios ready to use NO T5s. They come w/reflectors and self contained ballasts. All you do is plug them in. For your tank, I think the HO T5s are probably going to be too much. Also, they get hotter than you may expect and could add more heat than you'd like. At 13" deep with a sand bed added, you could probably do well with PC lighting. Here is a link to a Helios supplier:
http://www.amads.com/Lights6.html

I have 4 TEK retros over a 55g and I had to add eggcrate and three layers of window screen to acclimate my LPS and softies. My tank also went from 78F to a 82F.

Also, go to this link and look at page 2. See the pics posted by rxonco. He has a 72g bowfront that uses nothing but these NO T5 Helios lights.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/s...1647&perpage=25&highlight=t5 sps&pagenumber=2

 

[Catharsis70]

I was at LFS today and they had Current Bulbs on clearance. I got a 10k and an actinic T5NO. I set them up running on one output each off a Fulham Workhorse5 ballast. The reflector is from a Coralife PC retro. Wow! if the standard outputs are this intense with a flat reflector I can only imagine what the HO look like. I am thinking of just going with a few T5NO bulbs now. Amazing.