T5 Growth Pics

I got my TEK from Greg at ReefGeek too. He's very knowledgeable and very easy to talk to. He'll be more than happy to explain the various color temps of the bulbs offered.

NewSchool, I believe ATI is no longer mfg the bulbs. I believe they are now called D & D. My recent replacement bulbs were the D & D.

smokez01 is there any place to purchase a cheap retro fit of a 6x54w T5?? i found these 8x54w T5's, but i think 8 may be too many for what i want,

smoke, I have a 75 gallon. It is the same footprint as the 90 gallon. The 90 is just 4" taller. You'd be throwing your money away with an 8 bulb TEK light. The two outermost bulbs would be hanging over the long sides (front and back) of your tank. The light spillover would exceed the amount of useable light in your tank. Save your money.

Russ
 
Thanks Russ for the useful piece of information!!

I only wish they had 6x retro fit kits, it goes from 4 to 8,

and the TEK lighting on the reefgeek site is strange, the 6x54w is like 340 for the fixture and stuff, and the retro kit is 490??? for the same thing except the housing?
 
Smoke, this is copied from the reefgeek site:

< quote >
Description: T5 high-output fluorescent retrofit kit with your choice of six from the following German-made bulbs: 6000K Sun, 11000K Aquablue Special (60/40), Actinic/Blue Plus, and Pure Actinic 03. Comes complete with three Triad T5 electronic ballasts, a power-cord for each ballast allowing for dawn and dusk control, moisture proof end-caps....
< quote >

The complete TEK fixture has three ballasts also, but the TEK light only has two power cords whereas the retro has three, the endcaps are not moistureproof on the TEK, it doesn't include the choice of bulbs that the retro does either (that's the biggest difference).

When you receive the free bulbs with the TEK light, you'll probably wind up using zero, just like I did. Therefore you'll have to spend the money on six new bulbs. Add that up alone and you're probably close to $150 with shipping. The free bulbs are all 6500k, very yellow phillips/GE bulbs.

Hope this helps a bit,
Russ
 
Richard, there are 3-4 main bulb choices. The Blue+ is close to an actinic. The GE Daylight is cheap and put out light at 6500K, which many say is the optimal light needed for growth. The Aquablue light puts off a very nice blue-ish white light at around 11K. There's also an ATI sun which can be used, too.

There's a lot of good info here.
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=679852

I have a Tek hood and am pretty happy with it.
 
newschool,
thanks for the reply. i just took my acrylic shield off to see what happens. i think i'm losing out on some light that way. i moved it 1 inch higher just in case the corals have to acclimate. I have the ora blue tort as well and it isnt a dark blue like yours. I dont think it's the light, perhaps i'm lacking something else. I'm not sure, but it's growing nicely and so are other sps that i have. Thanks again for the thread.
 
all my pics at the beginning of the thread are gon. I hosted them with photobucket.com and they say bandwidth exceeded. I just deleted a lot of photo's I had saved there but it didn't change the pics on RC.
Any ideas anyone?
 
I'm just guessing here, but it may have something to do with your membership status. I know I host alot of pictures with photobucket and I dont exceed my bandwidth. You might ask if this has something to do with it. ( difference between regular member and premium member) But I'm just guessing here.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6293540#post6293540 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by aquaman508
Hey Jill & Brian,

I would be very interested in hearing how the trip to Aquatinic goes. I am very interested in his T5 fixtures also and first hand info is pretty limited considering the amt of time they have been available.

The reflector quality is the biggest issue also the bulbs he is ofering are an unknown import from Singapore. Would love to save some money by taking advantage of his holiday offer. It seems like an excellent deal.

Anyone else with info on Aquatinics please chime in also. Tom definiteley gets good marks for customer service so far.

Jill & Brian feel free to pm me if you'd like.
Click to expand...

I will let you know once I go down there, although it does not look like I will be there before january. My wife is due with our 3rd child on sunday, so travel will be slightly limited :D. I also need to sell our current lights before i am allowed to buy new ones. Anyone want a nice 4X96W PC light :D

-Brian
 
NewSchool04
You have some awesome growth and color. could you let us know more about your system being that lighting isn't the only factor in having healthy corals.

Thanks,
Vic
 
I understand comlpetely! Best of luck to you and Jill.

I will let you know once I go down there, although it does not look like I will be there before january. My wife is due with our 3rd child on sunday, so travel will be slightly limited . I also need to sell our current lights before i am allowed to buy new ones.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Vic,
I have one of the most bare bones set ups I have ever seen. I drip Kalk with one of those 5 gallon Kent dosers, I use Randy Holmes two part CA and Alk supplement recipe and I do a 15 gallon water change every other week. At this point I can't keep up with the CA and ALK so I'm looking at CA reactors.

I have a 30 gallon sump that is separated into three sections. The first section collects the water from the overflow and has my Euro-Reef ES5-2 protein skimmer. This is a great skimmer and does wonders! The middle section has a DSB and I keep frags, rock and whatever else I banish from the display. I have a light that I got at Home Depot for 15 bucks that I read about from I think Melev that lights the sump. Corals love it but it's real yellow.

Third section is my return where I have a Mag12 pumping everything back into the display.
In the display I also have a SEIO 1100 and 1500. Lots of flow in the tank for sure.

I would say I have little more than 100 lbs of LR, mostly Figi but some tonga branch. Southdown SB that varies between 2 - 4". I mixed in about 2 lb. of larger aragonite when I started the tank June 04 that has made it to the surface now.

fish:
yellow tang, hippo tang, false and true perc, mandarin, pseudochromis, coral beauty, and 1 green/blue chromis

I think thats it, I can't think of anything else that I could put here!
 
From above: Third section is my return where I have a Mag12 pumping everything back into the display.
In the display I also have a SEIO 1100 and 1500. Lots of flow in the tank for sure
 
I've had people say you get the plating effect that you have, if you point the PH directly at the coral. But on the other hand, I've heard the opposite.


Kevin
 
As far as monti cap growth goes I've heard and experienced that you can get really good scolling growth by mounting frags vertical instead of flat.

Just wanted to get your guys thoughts on a bulb combo...I've got a 29gal that I'm currently running 2x24w t-5 (aqua blue plus bulbs) and a 55w PC (03 actinic). I plan on replacing the PC with another 4x24W t-5 retro from reefgeek. With six bulbs I only plan on haveing 5 over the tank and 1 over my HOB refugium. So what bulb combo would you guys recomend for 5 bulbs...I would like to keep the tank looking like it's in the 14K range..
 
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