T5's: A cautionary note

[merk1_99]

I experienced no bleaching. I was fore warned with this thread and used the screen method for three weeks. When the screen came off my lights were 8 inches off of the top of the tank. They have since been lowered to 3 inches after after about another month. I had my softies at different heights in the tank. I took my hammers and put them down by the sand and they looked miserable. I have since moved them back up top where they are flourishing again. Two more heads.

I do have to say I agree with Fast uno on the coloration of the Orange cap. I have not seen that color of orange in another tank. I got my frags from a tank with dual 250's and they looked good. Now they just have an awesum orange color...weird...

My green digi is growing out of control...If I ever stop dropping LR on it and breaking it it will be a truly nice specimen....

Once again I only attribute my non problems through the use of caution when introducing the lights to the tank. Also I only have the 39 watt 6 bulb system......

 

[FastUno]

Glad to see the warnings have transpired & could potentially help others.

Imagine how much more flexibility we could have with T5's if we were able to turn on an individual bulb vs a set of 2 or 4. In my case even with 4 bulbs on it seemed too much, but three might have just done the trick? That would have meant rewiring the fixture.

Imagine how much more potential there would be in a dimmable setup. We could gradually increase the levels over time & truly determine whether we are dealing with acclimation issues or simply toleration issues. I still remain optimistic about T5's.

 

[horkn]

uno, when i did retros, i went with 3x39 on my 35g. and its more than enough.

i just need more sps, because the 2 (montipora and pocillopora) i have seem to grow as quick as the zoos and gsp in my tank.

 

[Codeman00]

Uno, I really think you had it worse than the rest of us. I really think you blasted your corals with a ton of light and hurt them before they could get adjusted. I adjusted my corals to 4 bulbs over a period of a month or so and really haven't had that many problems. In fact, some of my corals seems to have settled in and now are showing new growth as we speak.

 

[merk1_99]

I agree that with my acclimation process that my corals are happy n growing. Since the switch from PC's I have had slow growth on my LPS. My hammers and frogspawn have grown albiet slowly since I went to T5's. Though their colorations and overall head sizes seem more full and healthy. My couple of SPS frags green digi, Larry Jackson, orange monti's, and another unknown SPS frag (all were less than 3/4'') have shown growth. In gact the last couple of weeks they have seemed to settle in a little more, and their growth seems to have speeded up slightly.

I am happy with my T5's though I do wish I could run 1 bulb instead of 4, or 3, out of 6. And yes I do wish they were dimmable too. I am hoping that someone like Tek is attempting to tackle these issues. When I set up my 20 gallon frag tank I am think of using T5's. But who knows I may just go for a 150/175MH just for the sake of the one bulb convience....

i wish I had a good camera, or knew how to use my mine better...I would like to share my results from my albiet young conversion...

I just wish there were informative threads on all types of equipment out there. Where are the good skimmer threads, etc...I/ feel I did my homework on the T5's and didnt just **** my money down the drain like I have in the past...

 

[FastUno]

At the time I was reading T5 threads everyone was on the more is better bandwagon. Everyone was worrying about how deep their tanks were & whether they can grow SPS's & make clams happy.

I wanted to buy only one fixture & let that be the end of it, so I went with the 6 bulb T5 configuration.

 

[jmack]

Can someone please tell me where I can get at t-5 fixture for a 60"L x 26" tall x 18" front to back tank? They don't seem to exist.

 

[The Grim Reefer]

Can someone please tell me where I can get at t-5 fixture for a 60"L x 26" tall x 18" front to back tank? They don't seem to exist.

www.reefgeek.com

The Tek fixtures only go up to 48" long but the geek has 60" retrofits you could install in a canopy, otherwise just hang a 6 or 8 lamp 48" fixture over the tank.

 

[FastUno]

Grim, show us some grow out shots. Watcha got?

 

[The Grim Reefer]

Are you kiddin' I've been fragging to get ready for the new tank. I got a bunch of zoo, finger leather, torch and frogspawn frags I am going to trade for rock.

On a downer note I lost my bubble coral. It was tied for my first coral and was 10" across.

 

[jmack]

Hey thanks Grim Reefer!

 

[netboy]

I can't believe I read the whole thing...my head hurts now.

 

[chevell]

8 bulbs

8 bulbs

We need reefers like chevell to stir things up a bit, because he is right in a way. I have seen some extraordinary reefs using only VHO's & they don't seem to have these issues described by us Extreme MH or T5 users. Although I must say 880W of lights sounds like a heck of a lot.

chevell, do you have issues with corals bleaching or not acclimating well to the light? Do you need to use the screen method? You are laughing at us, aren't you?

We have seen successful systems with VHO's, MH's, & T5's. There are no right or wrongs, because there is more than one way to skin a cat.

Sorry for the late responce, I really can't run all 8 bulbs for very long because it's simply too bright for any and all types of corals. Five of my bulbs are actinics and only three are the white aqua suns and even with that many actinics running all eight at once is WAY too much light for any sps that I have. I think running any more than two aqua suns is over kill and actually slows down the growth. I can run my 150 gallon tank using only 330 watts consumption average, you halide users are simply throwing away wattage and producing heat in the process. In fact I only can run five bulbs most of the day, two aqua suns and three actinics,then I turn on the last three bulbs in the back of the tank to simulate the suns movement over the tank.The over lap time for all eight bulbs is only one hour then my timers shut off four of the bulbs in front leaving only one aqua sun and three actinics on for the rest of the night. Interestingly I have found that sps corals grow faster with less light rather than more light and burning corals would be very easy to do if I ran them all at once. In my opionion those so called meters that measure intensity doesn't really mean anything and are not rated to measure the lighting spectrums that we are using. Put another way, if I tried to run all 8 bulbs all day long I would burn or tweak everything in my tank so if VHO's aren't bright or supposidly can't work in deeper tanks why is this so? At this point that saying about you need halides for this and for that is simply a lie and completly untrue and i'm curious as to who may have started such rumors and for what reason? I can only believe VHO'S may have a bad reputation simply because it is so easy to over do it with VHO and end up burning corals.I'm not really trying to stir things up at all, all i'm doing is reporting my observations so the readers here might be better informed.

 

[chevell]

much much brighter in fact

much much brighter in fact

My thoughts exactly.

Even many MH systems are cheaper to set up and run once you get up 8 VHOs...

You can get some real deals on MH when you look.

Chevell - I just don't see it - the evidence and majority of pricing I can find on line seems to be against you.

I see the evidence every single time I look at my lfs's tanks with halides. My VHO tank is not just brighter than all of them it's twice as bright as they are and with all 8 bulbs on my tank is in fact WAY too bright, even though i'm only using 520 watts to run them all. Oh and URI says that VHO's have a usable life of 6000 hours and I'v found this to be true.

 

[chevell]

.

 

[chevell]

found to be true

found to be true

Very nice, everything looks very healthy.

I could almost swear that some of my corals are growing quicker after I replaced 2 of the bulbs with blue+. They have not grown this much before, but it could just be sheer coincidence?

I have found the same thing in my VHO tank. Using less of the bright aqua suns made things grow faster simply because it was too bright for most corals. I had to go to 5 actinics and only three aqua suns and even then I can't run them all at once because it's just too darn bright and corals don't grow nearly as fast with too many lights.

 

[chevell]

very easy to over do it

very easy to over do it

Guys, yes my tank is 30" tall and there is about a 4 inch sand bed as well the lights are all of 3 inches from the top of the tank. I can tell you that my Zoo's have to be kept in the lower half of the tank, they just don't like being up too close and my anemone seems to like it in the shade under a overhang. As far as over driving the lights, my balasts are IceCap 660's which I think do over drive the lights (could be wrong).

Grim, you are correct I do have room for another row, I really wanted to do some "testing" with an Acro Frag before I went all out with corals.

Thanks

It's very easy to over do it even with VHO or T5 , people who say you need as much par as possible havn't dealt with these lighting systems. Yes you can easily over do it with lighting and you will end up burning corals and slowing down growth if you have too much light. I have done many tests with my lighting system and this is true without a doubt.

 

[FastUno]

Grim, pics? I already sold the new one I bought & so cant post anything. Soon as I get my next one you bet I will post some. I made a video of my tank, but have trouble converting it & gave up pre-maturely.

netboy, I feel sorry for you... the whole thing? How long did that take?

chevell, damn talk about a delayed response. We thought we lost you there. Wasted heat? All I can say is that I will never again be cold in my livingroom during winter nights!

 

[FastUno]

Chevell, even when I was running only 2 T5 bulbs in my tank corals seemed content.

I know this one dude who has 2 pc lights & all his softies are to die for.

One thing to report, I had the T5's the whole 6 hours along the MH for three days & my cap got darker now.

 

[FastUno]

These are horrible pictures taken from my 1.5MP video camera, it's all I got!

Monti growing on top of the purple monti:

This was just taken so it's time to go to sleep time & frogspawn is retracted. You can see the white flesh that grew all over it's base. I will take another pic this weekend when it is out.

Zoos on top of zoos, nowhere else to grow.

Big mistake, now it's really taking over. Took months for it to grow big & in a matter of 2 months it's really taking over.

This is a really horrible pic, but the maze brain made a come back after the MH exposure. I thought there was a good chance that I was going to loose this after the last bleach out.