coralife

[Newflavor]

Hi,

I am planning on buying the tek t5 hood but because I am a little short in cash right now, I do not want to spend yet. This weekend, big al's had a garage sale and I got two 48" coralife aqualight t5 with 4 lamps in total included for a really cheap price. I just want to ask if anyone here uses or used this brand. How does it compare with the tek? I want to take care of sps corals, clams, mushrooms in this tank. I will be upgrading to tek still but I just need a good comparison and an idea of how good coralife is. I will be running two actinics and two 1000k lamps which are also from coralife.

Another good question is what diff will it make if I use the tek with the coralife lamps? The tek does not come with any lamps so I plan on using coralife lamps for them. What really is the advantage of the tek hood?

Thanks

 

[Newflavor]

BTW, I have a 55 gallon tank right now.

 

[keeperofthesea]

What wattage are the bulbs in your coralife. Coralife makes some fixtures that are just T5's and aren't HO (high output). If you have regular T5's then you are very limited. However if you have HO T5's normally 54watts per bulb then you can keep just about anything. You have to stick with the less demanding SPS and Clams (which there are plenty to pick from) but by all means it's very do able. Also if your light does not have individual reflectors for each bulb, you might consider some adding some TEK ones. There are several forums that show how easy it is to do. Individual reflectors really increase the effectivness of the bulb. If you already have individual reflectors and the fixture is 54 watts per bulb, then why bother buying a TEK? Both companies make solid products and there really isn't a difference between the output between the two! Also a T5 bulb works in any T5 endcap/fixture.

 

[Newflavor]

I have the 28 watts per lamp by coralife and they have only one reflector for both. I guess this will do me for now but eventually I'll upgrade.

 

[HowardW]

<<< How does it compare with the tek? I want to take care of sps corals, clams, mushrooms in this tank. >>>

There is no comparison really. The Coralife T5 fixtures are simply normal output 28 X 2W T5 units and use a cheap flim like reflector for both bulbs. The Tek fixture uses special individual reflectors for each bulb (very important for T5s) and also uses HO ballasts which give each bulb nearly twice the wattage of the Coralife bulbs. The individual reflectors in the Tek along with the higher watt bulbs makes a world of difference.

You would not be able to keep any SPS corals or other light loving creatures using the Coralife T5 fixture IMO, however it's a nice economical fixture for fish only or low PAR requiring creatures.