my new t-5's

[mskohl]

Well, I just ordered my new lights for my new tank! I bought Paul's 225 gallon and I'm going to try T-5's over it. I've had a lot of advice that I 'have to have MH', but I'm going to give this a shot. I may have to go with softies on the bottom (it's about 30" tall), but I think I'll like that.

So, here is what I bought:
two sun - 6000k Broad spectrum encourages growth

two aquablue - 60% Actinic 40% white spectrum. Color temperature 11,000K Crisp White as a stand-alone lamp

one blue - Blue Spectrum Peaks at 450 nm; Supplementation Lamp encourages blueing in SPS coral, minor fluorescing

and one actinic - The spectrum spikes at 420 nanometers for the ultimate fluorescence of coral.

I hope this gets me the look I'm going for and I'm anxious to test with the PAR meter. Please offer opinions on the order in which to place them. I hope it all fits together easily, this is really not my interest.

Stephanie

 

[Dtking]

hey steph, let me know how that works, i just purchased a vho set up with 2 lights, it should be here on thursday, jimmy is bringing me the bulbs to work tomarrow, they have been used for 5 months, but the ballast is suppose to be at 10000K, is that good or no?!.... i am still trying to learn the lighting thing, can you tell me more about it or give me a website!?

thanks,
Dustin

P.S. but let me know how the t-5's go, i might add some to this tank i am working on.

 

[pwhitby]

Ray's tank is outstanding with T5s.

 

[mskohl]

What I know about the t-5's and lighting in general, I learned from reading tons of threads on here and talking to club members. Like Paul said, Ray's tank is great. He had a meeting at his house a few months back and his tank was nice and very bright.

It'll be a while before I get everything set up - I still need to buy several expensive items.

On that note, if anyone has any rock for sale, let me know.

 

[2ras]

Stephanie,

Glad to hear that you've made the jump to T5s!

I've added a second 20K Blue, for a total of 400W of T5s.
It didn't hurt my softies or leathers, or mushrooms. Some of these are up fairly high in the tank.

When I get the photobucket thing figured out I'll post a pic here...

You'll really enjoy the lights.

Ray

 

[pwhitby]

here is one of Ray's tank:

 

[2ras]

Here is one I placed in photobucket for a test.
T5s make coraline algae very prolific, as you can see, it even grows on the larger sand particules. The white parts are from the sand sifting stars doing their job.
I scraped the back glass to look like mountains...

These are my first photos with my Nikon D50, still getting used to it. Better photos to follow (hopefully on a seperate thread)

Ray

 

[Dtking]

how do you know when your vho lights go bad!? i just had some vho bulbs given to me by a friend and they were 5 months old... how often do you change bulbs?!