Giesemann/ATI T5 lamp comparison - pics, PAR, and a whole mess of data

[jedimasterben]

(For viewing this document as a single post, please click here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WHuol0uRn2W7Jk-rxYWmtNgUF-lkY_VlUpAiNsMwME4/pub )

So I am relatively new to the T5 scene. I’m more an LED guy myself, but the same principles apply (it’s all physics anyway). My first T5 added were a pair of ATI Coral Plus, which are gorgeous standalone lamps. Come lamp replacement time I was looking for something with a touch more blue, but not so significant as using blue lamps, so I tried a pair of Giesemann Lagoon Blue, which, frankly, were horrific. They were described as ‘a turquoise blue color’ which i thought would be cool, but in reality it was far from it, just a drab white lamp with a slight yellow tint, it actually made some of my non-fluorescent stuff look worse, was really unimpressed with how unbalanced they were.

Fast forward a few months, I then saw in a discussion that Coralvue was the distributor for Giesemann’s new lamp line. They reworked a few of the lamps from the old D-D line and added some new ones, increased their output, and changed the name on some. I talked with Chris from Coralvue about it, and he wanted to send me a couple of them to use to see how I liked them. He originally sent one Aquablue Coral and one Actinic Blue. I personally couldn’t really tell the difference between them and the ATI Coral Plus and Blue Plus that they replaced. PAR was pretty close between them on my Apogee sensor, within margin of error (slight victory to the Actinic Blue versus the Blue Plus, and slight victory to the Coral Plus versus the Aquablue Coral).

Fast forward another few months and I again talked to Chris and he offered to send me some more of the lamps to try out, this time six in total to be able to see different combinations. This time I also purchased six ATI lamps from Marine Depot in the same corresponding colors to do a comparison to share, just getting some pictures of different combinations and getting some basic PAR numbers.

It took quite a while to get everything ready. I was waiting for a Nano Box Reef retrofit to a 6x39w ATI Sunpower to arrive, and when it did it was unfinished due to a delay in some of the electronics, but once everything arrived, I reassembled everything and got to it.

Keep in mind I don’t have nearly the amount of coral to compare as some do, and on top of that most have non-fluorescent pigmentation.

ATI Lamps
2x Blue Plus

Coral plus
(unfortunately, one of the Coral Plus lamps I received was defective, so I wasn’t able to get any photos of two of them alone)


2x Purple Plus

2x Blue Plus and 2x Purple Plus

2x Blue Plus, 1x Coral Plus, and 1x Purple Plus

Giesemann lamps
2x Aquablue Coral

2x Actinic Blue

2x Super Purple

2x Actinic Blue, 2x Aquablue Coral

2x Actinic Blue, 2x Super Purple

2x Aquablue Coral, 2x Super Purple

 

[jedimasterben]

2x Actinic Blue, 1x Aquablue Coral, 1x Super Purple

And last we have a mixture of the two brands' white/purple lamps.
1x Aquablue Coral, 1x Coral Plus, 1x Purple Plus, 1x Super Purple

The above combo actually looked the best to me out of all of them IMHO. Plenty of fluorescent response, and every non-fluorescent color still expressed.

And here is a shot of the lamps themselves when running.

Left to right
Coral Plus, Actinic Blue, Blue Plus, Aquablue Coral

Super Purple, Purple Plus, Coral Plus, Aquablue Coral

And now for something a little different. Coralvue had some of the Giesemann lamps sent to a third party lamp manufacturer and asked for them to do things like spectral output graphs, lumen data, electrical data, etc. Data was also collected for some ATI and D-D Powerchrome lamps, as well, but I’ve removed the D-D lamps as they are no longer in production. The third party did not wish to be identified (I think they were worried if Giesemann or ATI didn't like the results that they might sue, etc), so take these for what you will, but keep in mind that each lamp had over 600 data points that were measured, across 20 tests (each lamp tested twice, and some duplicate lamps were sent), for a total of 12,000 data points. It would be rather… tedious to change juuuust the right ones.

Spectral measurements were taken using a Gooch & Housego OL 756 Spectroradiometer (double monochromator).

Radiometric and luminous output data was collected using a Labsphere LMS-3M integrating sphere, measurements at 10” distance, no reflectors.

I have uploaded each spreadsheet containing the raw data (which includes functions to produce a spectral graph based on each reading of each individual wavelength from 200-800nm) to Google Sheets for easy viewing. The caveat to that is that, unlike Excel, it does not connect each point using a line, so the graphs on the linked spreadsheets are just points on the plot. I have pulled the graphs out of Excel and have uploaded them separately and will post each with the appropriate data.

First up, let’s take a look at the electrical, luminous, and PAR characteristics for each of the tested lamps. The lamps were tested twice each - once brand new out of the box, the other with 100 hours of burn time. (sorry for the screenshot here, there is no easy way to put a spreadsheet onto the forum, so if you want a better view, you can find the full data set here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...mYXMTWmGRKb-0VVxTik/pubhtml?gid=0&single=true )

ATI Aquablue Special
0 hours
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ICV08bbHWAS45TK8B6jEVDKGr8gOrZM6B-cfYtWozZY/pubhtml

100 hours
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xOVWjx9oyesrRWZHdLQ-J55UYJdUAupipcRJ2DXTzrg/pubhtml

ATI Blue Plus
0 hours
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LPzdUSR-aJsp-oQFfhK3H4gJA-vVLSptYkeV9N08DWE/pubhtml

100 hours
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17_ANHWiTm1jFtXxnpUbUqVa2ZtDNuApbseyqaKyG-b8/pubhtml

 

[jedimasterben]

ATI Coral Plus
0 hours
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1l5ModHvc5AW_3lp4b2SXad53SKj8LC1Oq9kMKtivV3I/pubhtml

100 hours
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IkVJVFRlojSSR7VsPA0rSQQ4YCaWNUcClIE0NYNcyUQ/pubhtml

ATI True Actinic
0 hours
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1v8sDnhaP4XhhUKcvl_AZHIr-5Nk9Td1DPwMDM1mavk4/pubhtml

100 hours
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ijY2fdTVIAa4cIj-J_MVr2sbSGWPJSLMiXDU7OehcjQ/pubhtml

Giesemann Actinic Blue
0 hours
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JHBJmE535F4ltHVzZqLYxQUpNV-1AXrQZ6VHWR9EI6o/pubhtml

100 hours
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ws1v9ulo8ge78YGxZB_lz81h1H2rQqz_3OQYHt11jio/pubhtml

Giesemann Aquablue Coral
0 hours
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CKsrjFgwovod64XrC2NxhT8L8A1bNC3HU3J-hIe52Rs/pubhtml

100 hours
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qELjRQKdLDaSBpkJ15pmJbXIDPPWNXXqi8AoMRBHsRY/pubhtml

Giesemann Lagoon Blue
0 hours
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pvipmh4_a1yo_NYCW3C-FhxeR9r4DpDtc5rmixKujfg/pubhtml

100 hours
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ghC1kDjui7yghJRnXW3wzkh3teHTvwW7ErOu157jP8w/pubhtml

Hopefully that gives a little bit of data on these new lamps to show that Giesemann’s new line is better than what they could do previously.

 

[jedimasterben]

Now, which combo would I recommend? Well, that's 100% personal preference. I really am not tied to using any of the four T5 in my Sunpower because I have the tank pretty sufficiently covered with two rows of LED arrays.

However, I've been playing with using a pair of the lamps for a couple of hours per day. When no LEDs are on, using one white (Aquablue Coral or Coral Plus) and one blue (Actinic Blue or Blue Plus), IMHO it doesn't look all that great. I know most people use and adore that 1:1 lamp combo, but to me, it is bland. I am not a fan of overly blue tanks, and a 1:1 ratio is overly blue. Adding a purple lamp (Purple Plus, Super Purple) helps a little, but still not "˜white' enough IMHO.

None of these combinations would be inherently better as far as growth is concerned, as their PAR is pretty similar, so using all blue lamps or all white lamps will grow corals as well as a mixture of the two. Lots of people will still tell you "˜10K for growth, 20K for color' but IMHO it has more to do with the extra intensity from "˜10K' bulbs than in the spectral change (it takes more energy to make blue photons than it does green or red, so you can make more photons [meaning more PAR] with green and red). The only exception is for violet bulbs (Super Actinic, True Actinic), as violet have far lower total photons emitted, so much less PAR. These should only be used in 6-8 bulb combinations if you need to lower intensity but still want to use all the bulbs.

So pick whichever combo you think looks best over your tank and let your corals grow!

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Thanks for your efforts. You have provided really useful data. I have three questions:

1. How did you place your tubes in your ATI unit?
2. How long did you wait after you switched on your light unit and before taking PAR measurements?
3. Did you place your quantum sensor in the water or did you take your measurements outside the water? If the former applies, then how did you make sure that water visibility was the same?

regards

Bulent

 

[jedimasterben]

Thanks for your efforts. You have provided really useful data. I have three questions:

1. How did you place your tubes in your ATI unit?
2. How long did you wait after you switched on your light unit and before taking PAR measurements?
3. Did you place your quantum sensor in the water or did you take your measurements outside the water? If the former applies, then how did you make sure that water visibility was the same?

regards

Bulent

The PAR measurements are calculated from the data of the integrating sphere and the lamps were given at least 10 minutes to warm up before each test (at both 0 hours and 100 hours), so no water/etc. Unless your water has a lot of particulates or gelbstoff, the results will be very close with air or water. Surface agitation can also act as a lens and can increase and decrease local PAR by 50% with each glitter line.

I actually did my own measurements with my Apogee sensor, inside my Sunpower at a fixed distance before I put the fixture over my tank. Each combination gave roughly the same PAR, within the margin of error of the Apogee sensor - 88-95 PAR at 26" distance using the stock Sunpower reflectors.

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Thanks.

Are the labelled ends of your tubes directly under the cooling vents of your ATI unit (assuming you have an ATI sunpower- based on the first picture)?

What was the ambient room temperature at the time of your experiment and what voltage setting did you use?

FWIW, I would have given at least 1 hour to enable the tubes to warm up properly. This is what most people who provided PAR data on UR did in the past.

Cheers

 

[jedimasterben]

Thanks.

Are the labelled ends of your tubes directly under the cooling vents of your ATI unit (assuming you have an ATI sunpower- based on the first picture)?

What was the ambient room temperature at the time of your experiment and what voltage setting did you use?

FWIW, I would have given at least 1 hour to enable the tubes to warm up properly. This is what most people who provided PAR data on UR did in the past.

Cheers

The measurements I took myself were before the Sunpower insides were placed into the housing and before it was hung over my tank, so they were open to the air, very ghetto looking but definitely the easiest to swap out the lamps. Ambient was 26C.

Also, the testing done in the integrating sphere was taken at 15 minutes, it was my testing that was done after 10. The lamps had stabilized in this time, the measurements did not change after leaving them on for longer periods. I would imagine if they were enclosed and the temperature continued to rise then that would change the results, but ambient conditions were pretty stable in my testing at home and I'd imagine inside the sphere they were very tightly controlled.

 

[fessoclown]

wow,
thanks for your efforts here. I just "skimmed it" over my morning coffee(s) and will come back to properly digest the info here.
As a fairly new reefer (5Years) who started with Radions I have just switched to an ATI SP fixture and love it despite not knowing the actual numbers... I have spent a lot of time reading the T5 Q+A thread though...
Tagging along...Thanks again!

 

[DiscusHeckel]

The measurements I took myself were before the Sunpower insides were placed into the housing and before it was hung over my tank, so they were open to the air, very ghetto looking but definitely the easiest to swap out the lamps. Ambient was 26C.

Also, the testing done in the integrating sphere was taken at 15 minutes, it was my testing that was done after 10. The lamps had stabilized in this time, the measurements did not change after leaving them on for longer periods. I would imagine if they were enclosed and the temperature continued to rise then that would change the results, but ambient conditions were pretty stable in my testing at home and I'd imagine inside the sphere they were very tightly controlled.

That's great. Thanks. Can I please repeat one of my earlier questions about the placement of your tubes inside your ATI? Were all the lamps consistently placed in the same way (preferably the labelled end under the cooling spot)? As you may know, the performance of T5 tubes vary if they are cooled differently. The best performance is obtained when the ambient temperature just around the cooling spots (i.e. the labelled end) is 35C.

regards

 

[jedimasterben]

wow,
thanks for your efforts here. I just "skimmed it" over my morning coffee(s) and will come back to properly digest the info here.
As a fairly new reefer (5Years) who started with Radions I have just switched to an ATI SP fixture and love it despite not knowing the actual numbers... I have spent a lot of time reading the T5 Q+A thread though...
Tagging along...Thanks again!

Yeah, it is definitely a lot to go over! I had to have my coffee this morning before simply posting it and ensuring the formatting was correct!

That's great. Thanks. Can I please repeat one of my earlier questions about the placement of your tubes inside your ATI? Were all the lamps consistently placed in the same way (preferably the labelled end under the cooling spot)? As you may know, the performance of T5 tubes vary if they are cooled differently. The best performance is obtained when the ambient temperature just around the cooling spots (i.e. the labelled end) is 35C.

regards

My Sunpower is an older model that does not have fans on the end, the fans are located closer to the center (though still to the left a bit). But yes, you can see how the lamps were put in by the photos of the lamps themselves, the label is on the opposite end closest to the cooling.

The fans in my unit are not stock - I have much larger, more efficient fans installed and even pulling from the same 50mm hole they push much more air into the fixture (stock fixture will have approximately ~234 watts of T5, I have the capacity for over 350 watts with the LEDs and T5 all on at maximum). The photos were taken with the fans on but all the LEDs off, and I honestly didn't pay too much attention to the lamps after I turned them on for photos - they all were done at least 15 minutes after flipping the switch, as I was doing housework and such during that time, so some were left on for a bit longer, but temperature inside shouldn't have changed.

Thank you for the questions, keep them coming if you have more

 

[Bpb]

Interesting to note that after 100 hours of burn time, the blue, white, and purple bulbs from both manufacturers encountered around a 5% decrease in par, some less. That's fine and to be expected. But the ATI True Actinic actually had nearly a 30% INCREASE in par after 100 burn hours. I have read that this bulb takes a certain number of burn in hours before it will be bright enough to see.

 

[fessoclown]

I'd love to see some pics of your modded fixture... maybe this is the wrong place though... got a thread somewhere?

 

[jedimasterben]

I'd love to see some pics of your modded fixture... maybe this is the wrong place though... got a thread somewhere?

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/360629-jedimasterbens-nano-box-reef-ati-sunpower-retrofit/

 

[jedimasterben]

I overlaid some of the lamps' spectral graphs over each other. Blue are ATI, Red are Giesemann.

Coral Plus and Aquablue Coral

Aquablue Special and Aquablue Azure (I just realized I've been calling it Lagoon blue)

Blue Plus and Actinic Blue

 

[Reefvet]

I overlaid some of the lamps' spectral graphs over each other. Blue are ATI, Red are Giesemann.

So it looks like Giesemann went to OSRAM and said please produce the same bulbs for us that you manufacture for ATI.

 

[jedimasterben]

So it looks like Giesemann went to OSRAM and said please produce the same bulbs for us that you manufacture for ATI.

Giesemann bulbs are made by Narva, not Sylvania. You're probably thinking of Korallen Zucht or Pacific Sun http://www.advancedaquarist.com/blog/pacific-sun-is-out-to-prove-t5-lighting-is-a-worthy-contender

 

[Reefvet]

Yes, my mistake, I was thinking of KZ.

None the less it's clearly not that difficult to match an existing bulb and it would appear that Narva was happy to do that for them.

 

[LesMartin]

I too was lured in by the 'rich turquoise blue' of the Lagoon blue. Unfortunately I bought 10 for my 10 tube fixture. They just looked yellow green to me and I eventually replaced 7 of them with six Actinic+ and 1 purple+. Still, I suppose I now have enough for the next two bulb changes......

 

[Kyuss]

Great info, thanks for your effort on putting it all together!