T5's: A cautionary note

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Your not the only one leaning to the dark side FastUno. I am still looking at the 150w HQI with phoenix bulb. But the 4X39w T5 with two aquablue and 2 blue plus looks good to me as well for zoo tank that I am putting together.
 
I am going to be switching to an in-wall tank pretty soon and have about decided on a 90 gallon tank. I think my lighting will be T5's with 20K halides for actinic supplimentation.
 
Great....after all this T5 research and I finally get my stand setup..everyone switches to halides. Too bad I ordered my canopy custom to house flourescents. Ugh.
 
dwdenny said:
Your not the only one leaning to the dark side FastUno. I am still looking at the 150w HQI with phoenix bulb. But the 4X39w T5 with two aquablue and 2 blue plus looks good to me as well for zoo tank that I am putting together.
Click to expand...
I'm selling a 4X39 TEK. :D
 
I would recommend 2 aquablue & 2 blue+ as well.

I am definitely going MH, no question about it. I am testing the ones I have now, but would like to get the Aquactinics. I have heard only great things about them & I won't have to worry about heat. What more could I ask for? For now just trying to narrow it down between 175W or 250W's. So far it seems that the 175W will suffice.

Funny, I had a guy come over this weekend that I was selling coral to & he described to me very similar problems as to what I had. I just had to laugh man. I want to be able to keep the corals that I want & put all this crap behind me. I think that I have sacrificed too much to try & make it work & just not willing to do it any more. Don't get me wrong, T5's are great & they have their place.

Anyone want to buy a T5 6 bulb fixture soon?
 
I'llgive you 50 bucks plus shipping. I hate to see that crappy T5 system take up room in the landfill so I will make the sacrifice and take it off your hands:)
 
FastUno- a friend of mine who goes to germany many times a year and has a reef tank has told me that the T5 lamps are not used on many tanks because of the trouble that you have had. It may be that thay are bringing them here just to sell the lamps.I was told this sunday.
 
I think it is more a matter of learning howto run the T5's. As a matter of pure luck I ran the glass lides on my tank with the T5's for the first year or so. I like the halides but I don't think the 10K lamps provide as much color as the T5's. I am working on resolving that using better actinics.
 
I am reading about how everyone is switching from T5 to metal halides due to all the problems with T5. Funny thing is that I haven't experience any of these problems and have been running T5's with 660 for close to 6 months. I have everything from sps, blastomussa, acan lord, yuma, zooanthids, clove polyps, scolymia (sp?), clams, chalice, etc... My brother has the same type of corals, but alot more, and his system is run on (2) 400w 20k metal halides, 2 URI actinics with 430, 2 T5 aquablue and 2 T5 blue plus with 660. His SPS gets better growth and color but otherwise my system has color similar to his. I have also not experience any shrinkage from any of my LPS and softies.
 
Now thats info that is more encouraging. I ventured onto some other threads where people have awesome tanks with T5s too. deiselab, what setup are you running? (# of bulbs, how far off the water, and bulb color)?
 
How about 25 & a lobotomy, make me forget all this! Seriously, it might be a matter of learning how to use them. I bet that if I placed the T5's higher up from the tank surface, I wouldn't have had the problems. Like I said before, maybe the bulbs that I bought had a little extra phosphorous in them? Maybe somebody got drunk at the T5 factory the day they made mine? Do we know anything about the consistency in the manufacturing process? I was just tired of shading, covering, & worrying to add new corals.

Those Germans just like them to pull a stint like that.

dieselab:
-what type of bulbs do you use (GE, D&D)?
-do you have individual reflectors?
-how high off the tank
-photoperiod?
-do you acclimate your corals? How?
I think these are the factors that spell success vs not as successful.

I had a local reefer who had an 8 bulb fixture & thought I was nuts with my experience. The only commonality we had is that we were both running T5's. He had the single reflector across the top, which made a world of difference. The difference might not have been great enough, for he ended up selling his lights & going back to MH.

I am really enjoying the T5 actinics off this new fixture. Purple..huh...I still can't believe it. The damn blue bulbs give off purple.
 
Hi.
I am currently running a 5 bulb setup. All bulbs are ATI/D&D bulbs. The 660 is running 4 bulbs which consist of aquablue, blue plus, blue plus and aquablue. The actinic is in the middle of the blue plus and is power by a triad ballast. Will be upgrading soon to a 430. The actinic is on from 11 noon to 1030pm. The other four start at 12 noon to 930 pm. The lights are roughly 3-5" from the top. The tank is an open top design. No shield is used. All bulbs are run on individual reflectors. The corals are not acclimated, other then starting them in the bottom 1/3, then moving them higher if any of the color is lost. So far, I haven't had any problem with color lost. The tank itself is 24" tall.
I would love to take pictures, but they do not do the tank justice. I am using a canon sd100. If anyone can help guide me to taking a better pic, I will post them.
The plan is to add another actinic to the mix.
Good Luck everyone.
Dieselab
 
dieselab, try white balance setting. Change it to cloudy mode & take a pic. If you have manual adjust change to shutter priority, overexpose (1-2) & shoot at higher shutter speed, as high as you can without the pic looking too dark.

So far not a single coral has responded negatively or is showing any signs of bleaching. No color has been lost due to lack of light either. My blastos are in the open light & no problems. The last time I tried to do that with T5's they looked horrible only in a few hours.

Strong is the shroud of the dark side within us all. The temptation fight must not. In the same path will follow soon.
 
True about the shimmies. Can't stop staring at them.

Is it me or does the tank look more purple at times & less at others. Does it have anything to do with temp of bulb? or maybe just the JD?
 
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