Lighting. Bulb type? Please educate me!

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Hey guys. Can anyone help me? I'm trying to understand the difference between compact florescent and other regular t5 bulbs. I have a coralife bulb and it has two bulbs side by side, with a square pin.is this a compact florescent? Is this bulb and pin type outdated? Why can I not find replacement bulbs at my lfs?
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If you need replacement bulbs, get the brand and other data like numbers off the bulb itself, (hoping it has them) and search online. There are so many different kinds of lights that stores don't stock a selection, but you can get them mailorder. My actinics look somewhat like that, and I believe they're HO, but I wouldn't swear to it.
 
Ok great, thank you for the replys. I had a similar post yesterday and someone said "most people have gone away from compact flourenscent fixtures. This fixture would work for fish only or softies or maybe some lps, but not for sps. T-5 high output, LED or metal halide are the fixtures of choice."
Is this all correct? Why are people not buying them any more? The reason. I ask is because someone is selling a four foot, four compact bulb setup, and I am interested in buying it for 45 dollars. But I don't want to buy something that is outdated and old.
 
IMO, they all work, it's just a matter of having the right fixture over your tank. Just as an example, one of my first reef tanks was a standard 20 gallon tank. I had a Hamilton fixture, two 50/50 PC bulbs, a built in fan and everything. Very bright. Looking back now, there's absolutely no reason at all that I couldn't have kept certain sps corals in this tank. No doubt whatsoever. GL.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-08/dw/index.php
 
PC bulbs will keep LPS and *some* SPS just fine. Assuming you place the SPS high in the tank, and they aren't overly light demanding corals, they do fine. I ran PC for 7 years before just recently switching to LED. They work fine.

However...

Before buying that 48" PC fixture because it's a good deal, take a look at replacement costs for the bulbs. And I don't mean the cheap junk off eBay, that probably can't grow much of anything because they're so weak. I mean a name brand bulbs, from say Current or the like. I know I was paying $40-50 per bulb for my 36" bulbs. And they need replacing every 6-8 months to keep the light levels high enough, and to keep the color spectrum from shifting too much. Two bulb fixture (one PC bulb will have two tubes) will easily top $200 per year in replacement bulbs. Just make sure you factor that in when you consider the upfront cost of the fixture.
 
+1

This is a very expensive hobby though. The cost of replacing bulbs every 6-12 months is peanuts IMO.
 
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I use a combo of 2 actinic HO's, [blue, color correction for daylight and also as moonlight] and a 250 watt 10000k MH with ballasts in a 100 gallon wedge bowfront---the dual ballasts for the setup are monstrously expensive, but work well for sps and lps. The regular old lights are far from outmoded: LED is still the bleeding edge, and people are still learning what works and doesn't, so it's far from a bad buy, but be sure whether you need ballasts: they're huge in the expense realm, so before laying out money, I'd want proof they work---if these require them. I've never used T5s, so I can't speak to that---input welcome from anybody using those, as to what about the ballasts?
 
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