T5's: A cautionary note

[Codeman00]

Trout sounds great...glad you had good luck.

BTW....I'm finally part of the T5 club!!!!!!. (after months of waiting on my stand to arrive).

4 - T5s, 1 VHO, and some LED night lights. I can't wait to get my rock next week.

<img src="http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/838954T5s_1VHO_and_night_lights.JPG"

 

[The Grim Reefer]

Looks good. Can't wait to see pics of the system up and running.

 

[Ti]

*starwars theme*
Well MH just went up today.
My DIY hood and retro is all in and running.
250 XM 20K.
T5 sitting in my room now.
Will the power of the dark side prevail?
We'll see.
I'll run it for a month and see how it goes.
So far I expect no heat issues, if anything it'll run cooler than my T5's.
oooooOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

 

[growyourown]

I must say that the T5's on my tank are awsome so far.

Although right now I have diatoms out the wazoo. It is only where the T5's shine.....

My tank went from setup to diatoms with absolutely no cycle, my PH is at 8.4, my amonia is undetectable, my nitrites are undetectable, my nitrates are less than 10ppm but deffinately above 0.

I added two raw cocktail shrimp three days ago to try and force a cycle, and the amonia was up this morning to just above detectable levels, I removed the shrimp and the amonia went back down as of half an hour ago, although my nitrates are a little higher than this morning.

My tank seems to be working very efficiently, and my skimmer is removing some really nasty stinky stuff. Life is good.

Now to just get rid of the diatoms, the turbo's and the margarita's are doing a good job so far.

All in all I will know more as life goes forward with the T5's but I will say the green zoa hitchhikers I received with my live rock love this light. And I am already seeing spots of bright blue/purple coraline on my overflow. Tank is one week old today.

Glenn

 

[Codeman00]

growyourown..

You're a little ahead of me, so I guess I get to learn from you...lol. Are you using any additives to stimulate quick coraline growth or are you just lucky? Thats awesome.

 

[growyourown]

Just lucky I guess, I did take a piece of live rock that was going in my fuge and sat at the kitchen table scraping coraline off of it in a bowl of fresh salt water, got a huge culture off of it, I then mashed it up really well with the bottom of a glass, turned it into coraline dust, I then addied that to the display. Maybe that helped, this was a tip from LeRoy at GARF.

 

[FastUno]

Grim, it's so like you to murder some trout. Glad to see your back.

Codeman00, that looks like a neat setup...very clean. If you were local I would commission you to do mine. Can't wait for some full tank shots. When I started dosing B-Ionic, that is when my coralline took off. This can get expensive with larger tanks though, so you may want to look into DIY 2 part. I am about to make some myself very soon.
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/april2004/chem.htm



Ti, how are you not expecting heat issues? Cooler than the T5's? What fixtures do you have? Eagerly awaiting your reports on how your corals respond & grow with the new MH's.


growyourown, do you have the green stuff growing on your tank walls? It grows in the back & sides of mine. Am I the only lucky one?

 

[growyourown]

Fastuno,

Not yet, Although I was on another site today, reefmonkey.com and they were talking about it in an algae scraper thread.

This is on setups that use MH not T5 though.

They called it green coraline. I do have some on my rocks though.

Glenn

 

[Ti]

FastUno: I made a well vented hood. The heat is escaping quite well so far as opposed to my SLS TEK fixture which was much closer to the water.
Today was day one, gonna see how well it goes.

 

[The Grim Reefer]

Welcome to the dark side O Ti Wan.

(You do understand that as admission to the dark side you must share your girl right?.... Ouch, damned light saber....OH! wasn't the saber, never mind,)

 

[Ti]

Welcome to the dark side O Ti Wan.

(You do understand that as admission to the dark side you must share your girl right?.... Ouch, damned light saber....OH! wasn't the saber, never mind,)

*cue evil laguhter*
MUAHAHHAHAHAH
I'll tell you guys this much after day one of MH.
SHIMMIES!!!!!!
ooooOOOOOOOOOO
Tank has never looked so SHARP and CRISP.
I tired to take a pic but they came out all COVERED in blue. I'm gonna have to figure out how to take a proper pic.
Something ain't right though.
my XM 20K ain't looking so 20K, looks more like the XM15K I saw last week.
prehaps they slipped a 15K into my 20K box...

 

[JonnyD91]

Hi

I have the 6 bulb T5 Tek light. My bulbs are coming tomorrow. My question is, is there a way to control which bulbs are connected to each switch or is there a default setup? Like if i wanted to do a dawn to dusk can i control which bulbs go on or off?


TIA

 

[Ti]

u have 2 switches
so yes.

 

[JonnyD91]

I mean is there a way to have 4 slots dedicated to 1 switch and 2 slots to another or is it split 3 slots to 1 switch and 3 slots to another?

 

[Ti]

mean is there a way to have 4 slots dedicated to 1 switch and 2 slots to another

That is how it comes.
Unless you want to break it open and rewire it.

 

[JonnyD91]

That is how it comes.
Unless you want to break it open and rewire it.

Ahhh I see.

I'll pass on rewiring it since it cost me 330.00 I gues i could have waited till i got the bulbs and saw for myself LOL

thanks again

 

[FastUno]

The dark side is getting stronger within me. Any regrets for those who went from T5's to MH? Any acclimation issues?
What if we decided to go back to T5's, do you think we will have reverse acclimation issues (probably so)?

Improvements in growth?

Grim.... I AM YOUR FATHER!

 

[The Grim Reefer]

The dark side is getting stronger within me. Any regrets for those who went from T5's to MH? Any acclimation issues?
What if we decided to go back to T5's, do you think we will have reverse acclimation issues (probably so)?

Improvements in growth?

Grim.... I AM YOUR FATHER!

You owe me a birthday present from Monday Pop. Johnny Walker of any color will do

I am not as happy with the color using halides but I am still working on that. Thinking about a couple of T6 VHO lamps in daylight to suppliment 20K halides.

 

[FastUno]

Not happy with 20K's, your kidding me? I was thinking of 10K 150W HQI DE, could only imagine how brown that would look. BTW I still can't find the plots on these, they are not posted in Sanjay's tests. Any other place we can find them?

 

[Ti]

The dark side is getting stronger within me. Any regrets for those who went from T5's to MH? Any acclimation issues?
What if we decided to go back to T5's, do you think we will have reverse acclimation issues (probably so)?

Improvements in growth?

Grim.... I AM YOUR FATHER!

So far I'm loving the MH. No acclimation issues at all. The tank is SHARP and CRISP and shimmers. Clams are on the sand bed now, extra +. Heat is still not a problem. The tank has never looked so nice even when my T5's were new. Corals show much better color with thi bulb cause I don't get the "band" problem with alternating diff color bulbs. The T5 is sitting in my room now, I don't see any problems putting it back on acclimation wise.
Growth wise, I'm not gonna comment on that till next week. Aren't I such a tease?

Not happy with 20K's, your kidding me? I was thinking of 10K 150W HQI DE, could only imagine how brown that would look. BTW I still can't find the plots on these, they are not posted in Sanjay's tests. Any other place we can find them?

I'm not happy with how my "20K" has turned out cause it don't look like a 20k. Something isn't right. It looks very much like T5 11K with T5 actinic. Very purple white. I might have gotten a goof up bulb or something. If it was as blue as the 20K's I;ve seen I'd be super happy, but it's not. Emailed XM about it, they replied asking me about my set up, I replied back and they have yet to reply back. Same deal with hellolights too.