LED's vs. T5's vs MH's

I just recently switched to a mid-range 4 bulb individual reflector t5 set up over a shallow tank that was previously lit by LEDs. I never had used t5 before and for the past 3 years Ive used LEDs and I have to say I am very impressed with t5 and wish I switched earlier.

There are a lot of great things about LEDs but I think you can get better color with t5s. As others have said if you are bleaching acros you dont need more light..I would raise your light a little and see if color improves.
 
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A good t5 setup is hard to beat. You could light a standard 75 gallon with a mere 234 watts of power and numerous bulb configurations. There's a plethora of quality bulb choices and changing bulbs is overrated since you should never change out all of the bulbs at once. They also last longer then most people think too. An actively and properly cooled t5 bulb ran at 8 hours a day should last up to 15 months ime. I personally think t5's have way more pros than cons and led's are still working out the bugs. Why do think ATI is making hybrid fixtures and not yet taking the full blown led plunge?
 
You can throw all the money you want at lighting but if your water quality sucks it won't matter. That said, for me it's T5's because I like the color and they grow coral.
 
I say go look at a few tanks with each lighting setup and decide not just on coral growth but what your eyes like. I have always had fo tanks and more recently fowlr.... Thus the quality of lights doesn't really matter to me but for my eyes mh is my only option.

I have t5 on my fuge..... Bulbs don't seem to last long and I am not a fan of how they look. I might try some type of led fixture for there..... Once my present bulbs crap out on me

For my tank I prefer metal halide. Get a really good reflector like a luminarc or luminbright and possibly a pair of 175w mh's is all you need. The bulbs I use are $12 ea..... The a the anthelia or whatever it is grows like crazy. Not a clue how the bulbs would work with other corals.......

The reason I do not like led is the shimmer. Love the shimmer of mh however with led to me it just looks way to fake. I see the colors of the led bulbs vs just shaded of light.

Heat also hasn't been a issue.... My ac is on all summer and all fall/winter/spring my heaters still kick on. Then again I have 750w over 475 gallons of water
 
True about the water quality and the beaching facts, but...
I think the thread should be first about deciding the lighting.
If we need to talk about water quality we'll need to bring other equipments and tests to the discussion, not to mention all the aspects of water params and so on...
Light is the focal point here, I guess.

Grandis.
 
I agree on the 6 bulb ati I had 2 ai sol blues over my tank 75 gallon went to 4 sol blues down to 3 and my corals did not respond at all water parameters great an I did this over a span of 2 years so I did try to let coral acclimate didn't work I went to ati 6 bulb and wow everything colored up growth awesome and what I did was I was missing the blue LEDs at night so I added a stunner strip for morning and night viewing its great
 
Drae said:
I personally think t5's have way more pros than cons and led's are still working out the bugs. Why do think ATI is making hybrid fixtures and not yet taking the full blown led plunge?
Click to expand...

I have said this many times:
The reason that companies that make led fixtures are "working out the bugs" is because they can't afford to make a completely new fixture, because if it doesn't work, they lose a ton of money. So each new fixture only differs slightly from the old ones.
ATI is making a hybrid for T5 fans and also for color blending. But by your logic, we can say that AI is proof T5s are yesterday's technology.
 
(Not a true test but my thoughts from what I've seen)
T5 has the edge on AI in terms of colorful coral from what I've seen from my corals being transferred to my fiends tank that has 3 AI SOL over a 125g, my red monti turned orange. Growth seemed okay enough though with AI.
I would supplement AI LEDs or whatever with T5 to fill in the missing wavelengths from most led fixtures. Not to mention cut back on shadowing and shimmer. Even if its one or two bulbs

I'm thinking of using my 4x24w ATI Sunpower over a 40g by adding a couple reefbright strips. I believe led/T5 combo is what I'll be doing next. I would think a 4x54w ATI Sunpower with a couple reefbright led strips attached would be a pretty killer light on a 75g.
 
I see the new ATI T5/LEDs system as another way to get the LEDs' fever around the market. That's all that is.
To me LEDs are one of the money machines of the hobby, with all the respect.
Fire on the dry grass. Pretty soon it's going to have either the real deal or to be abandoned. Hopefully they'll find a way to improve.

What does it help to get a strip of blue LEDs on the center of the tank today?
To me that space is wasted. It is more important to have the space available for combinations of T5 bulbs then have that unchangeable LED light strip there, even if we can control the spectrum. There is so many choices and that space will be "dead". You won't be able to use that extra Purple Plus or other supplementary bulb that so many times gives a special touch to the mix.
Perhaps it's to add some shimmering?
Hope you can get the picture.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Grandis.
 
A. Grandis said:
I see the new ATI T5/LEDs system as another way to get the LEDs' fever around the market. That's all that is.
To me LEDs are one of the money machines of the hobby, with all the respect.
Fire on the dry grass. Pretty soon it's going to have either the real deal or to be abandoned. Hopefully they'll find a way to improve.

What does it help to get a strip of blue LEDs on the center of the tank today?
To me that space is wasted. It is more important to have the space available for combinations of T5 bulbs then have that unchangeable LED light strip there, even if we can control the spectrum. There is so many choices and that space will be "dead". You won't be able to use that extra Purple Plus or other supplementary bulb that so many times gives a special touch to the mix.
Perhaps it's to add some shimmering?
Hope you can get the picture.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Grandis.
Click to expand...

So apparently all those things about leds producing colors in corals and bringing out the actinic colors- all a giant conspiracy. And those led lit tanks are all hoaxes. Leds have been proven to grow corals time and time again with varying results. I admit, some tanks do better than others, but the tanks lit by quality led fixtures look great IMO. The ones with the white+blue combo on ebay... not so much. But the same can be said of led and MH.
I agree with you on the led strip thing though. One or two is good for moonlights or actinic supplements. More than that is wasted IMO. They are too low power to be of use growing corals.
 
A. Grandis said:
Get the money for electricity, fixture and chiller?
Please go ahead!
The best deal!

:thumbsup:
Click to expand...

I actually used MH at one time over a 44 gallon tank. 250w of MH did not need any sort of chiller, even in the CA heat. I did run a computer fan to bring it down from 84* to 82*, but a chiller is really overkill in many cases.
 
If you decide on MH go with 2 x 175w electronic ballast, 12K reeflux lamps in luminbright mini pendants. Lamps should last 16 to 18 months.
 
I went from a DIY LED's to MH. Went from 60 lights, 4 drivers, 60 lenses, 120+ solder contacts and lots of wires to just 2 reflectors, 2 bulbs and 2 ballasts. For me, practicality made reef'in much more pleasurable. Not to bash LED's, I think in 8 to 10 years they will be the dominant and superior lighting source for reef tanks, but not now, its still in development IMHO.
 
From my opinion, trial and error, research, I've concluded Power Compacts are nothing but trouble. LEDs are great way to produce beautiful color and also can encourage coral growth greatly depending how well maintained your system is. As for T5's, I've never ran them, but they seem neutral.. You just cant go wrong as long as you keep up the bulb changing every couple of months.
 
In a 75G tank, I would recommend 150W HQI with 14K phoenix bulbs and a simple fan on the same timer as the lights. You can use the bulbs for 2 years, the heat can be EASILY handled by the fans and you could keep anything that you want in any place in that tank.

Also, you won't be disappointed in the performance of the light.
 
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