The T5 Q&a Thread - split

Well Ed. It's time for me to change bulbs for my 6 bulbs ATI Sunpower. I am using 4 B+, 1 P+ and 1 C+ and to be honest i like the B+ and P+ for the Dawn/Dusk.

If i go with your recommendation 50/50 what will be the lineup of bulbs becuase i once tried 2 B+ for Dawn/Dusk and didn't like it.

Thanks in advance...




Big E said:
I've been running that same exact combo for almost 3 years and have recommended it many times. Here's my tank thread for some examples all under coral+ & blue+

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2197142&page=6

Sometimes pics can help, but standing in front of a tank that has been under these bulbs is the true testament.

My friend is a hi end chalice guy and his chalices have never colored up better with this combo.
Click to expand...
 
I'm really enjoying the Red Sea Reef Spec Actinic bulb. I have it paired with a Coral+ over my 40b, supplementing a 250w MH. Not sure about the par, but the color is good. I find the blue+ to have too much green for my taste.
 
wcharon said:
Well Ed. It's time for me to change bulbs for my 6 bulbs ATI Sunpower. I am using 4 B+, 1 P+ and 1 C+ and to be honest i like the B+ and P+ for the Dawn/Dusk.



If i go with your recommendation 50/50 what will be the lineup of bulbs becuase i once tried 2 B+ for Dawn/Dusk and didn't like it.



Thanks in advance...
Click to expand...


I tried that combo in my 6 bulb unit and found that 4 b+ and 2 coral+ looked soooo much better imo. The purple+ and coral+ clashed imo
 
Joeb1983 said:
^ Big E; do you have a full tank shot? Im leaning towards the combo you recommended.
Click to expand...

I believe I have a shot of the tank on an angle in my thread. I didn't take a lot of front shots because of the glass being scratched up.

My new 80g rimless will have some front tank shots........... I just haven't been able to get my aqua scape set up to my liking. I'll try to take a full shot in the next few days on my thread if you're looking for what the ambient look is.

To the other questions, I've always run the bulbs alternating and start with the blue+ in the front. It's important to alternate to get a smooth coverage all over the tank ..........that will provide consistent spectrum and intensity.

I don't run any dawn/dusk.......never have with any of my lighting. I do full on/ full off 8 hours a day.
 
swk said:
Blue+
Blue+
Coral+
Coral+
Blue+
Blue+

You could spread them out more I suppose but this looks fine to me and I like the 2 b+ for dawn, dusk intervals.
Click to expand...

Depending on how the fixture is wired if you can I'd go
Front
Blue Plus
Coral Plus
Blue Plus
Coral Plus
Blue Plus
Blue Plus.

Reasoning #1 I do not like two bulbs of the same color next to each other other than blue plus for even light distribution.
Reason #2 You want the Peak of the full spectrum bulbs slightly in front of center point as area where your fish will be doing the most free swimming and you want them to be in more full spectrum light since there colors are reflective rather than florescent.
 
So how many have tried the new giesemann line up? I was lucky enough to get to be a beta tester for coralvue.

I slowly over a month swapped all my ATI bulbs (except 2x new Actinic) to the giesemann bulbs and can really say I am impressed. Just with two Azure bulbs vs the 2x C+ in the tank it takes all the blue washed out look away and brightens up the tank to almost a phoenix 14k look I'm so fond of and run in my garage .
I like a blue tank for sure but now that it's brightened up I don't think I can go back.

I have made a change from my normal line up with adding the Actinic bulbs a few weeks ago as I had ridiculous par in the tank @ 950+ 2" under and over 400 dead center on the sand bed in my 105g. I have also shortened my lighting period all to combat some bleaching I've been going through so it may change back soon. So some of the positives I see may be from the shorter lighting period also but I have absolutely no doubts these are a great competitor for the other top brands we have access to.

I'm running an 8 bulb powermodule. Bulb line up as of now is(front to back)
Actinic blue
Actinic blue
ATI actinic
Azure
Actinic blue
ATI actinic
Azure
Actinic blue.

That line up isn't set in stone I'm may try to swap positions a bit to get a better blend as recommended above and add some others I have still to test but for now I'm really liking it and so are my corals..I'm also using my apogee MQ-200 to see if they drop intensity quickly or what.

Some differences I noticed visually of the gman vs ATI bulbs so far..

Actinic blue vs blue +.. Less green in it to the eye and seems to be more blue side by side.. Also put out a higher par with my apogee under it in the air(not scientific at all lol). I personally like the look of it but I think the B+ is a tall order to beat so we shall see if it holds it own.

Aqua blue coral vs aqua blue special.. Def a more pleasing to the eye look being it has way more blue to it.. Can actually be a stand alone bulb imo vs if you did that with the abs it wouldn't be very pleasing to look at. They seemed to wash out my tank anytime I had one in the mix so I never took to them..

Aqua blue Azure vs coral +. (not sure if these are meant to be direct competition) but I personally wasn't a total fan of the coral + after switching to it from a 6500k/purple + combo initially, I always had a doubt that my tank was doing better growth wise and color wise before them. The Azure is my new favorite "full spectrum" bulb visually, it has a bright white look and a touch of blue without the pink of the coral +.

Now it's a hurry up and wait to see if the corals do good long term under this combo. I really want to try the 50/50 Actinic blue /Azure combo but I need to let the tank adjust for a bit to the new digs..

A big thank you to coralvue for letting me try these bulbs out we shall see if they can be my ATI replacement that has worked great so far.. I'm thinking the Azure for sure though and the Actinic blue is a very nice blue bulb that gives a slightly different look to the tank almost deeper if that makes sense . I wouldn't hesitate to run the whole line up just from my limited experience with them so far.
 
Last edited:
guys, I'm looking for suggestions.

I'm upgrade to a 244 gallon tank measuring 72x28x28 and am debating between:

-60 inch ATI sun power 8x80 watt

or

-hamilton cebu 3x250mh w/ 4x80 t5's

I'm really interested in going solely with T5's but Im not 100% that fixture would be enough.

Any insight? Is anyone else running a similar sized sps dominant tank with only t5?

I appreciate any advice.

Thanks.
 
clugo said:
guys, I'm looking for suggestions.

I'm upgrade to a 244 gallon tank measuring 72x28x28 and am debating between:

-60 inch ATI sun power 8x80 watt

or

-hamilton cebu 3x250mh w/ 4x80 t5's

I'm really interested in going solely with T5's but Im not 100% that fixture would be enough.

Any insight? Is anyone else running a similar sized sps dominant tank with only t5?

I appreciate any advice.

Thanks.
Click to expand...


I'd go MH + t5 if it were me...plenty of light plus the option to still get the exact color you want by mixing up your t5 bulbs to your liking.
 
Interested in the new gmann lights what would you suggest for a 4x24w. Looking for 14k or slightly more blue look thanks
 
sepulvd said:
Interested in the new gmann lights what would you suggest for a 4x24w. Looking for 14k or slightly more blue look thanks
Click to expand...

The 14K look is realy misleading as what most people think looks like 14K is really a much bluer combo on the true K scale. If you ran all 4 bulbs as either the Coral Plus of ATI or the AquaBlue Azure of Gmann you would have a true 14K combo. But in comparison to MH advertised bulbs this would not as blue as you want. Therefore I would run either 1 or two of these bulbs only with the other bulbs being either ATI''s Blue Plus or Coral Views Atininc Blue. Stay away from pure Atinic Blues as the PAR would be too low especially on only a 4 bulb fixture.
 
clugo said:
guys, I'm looking for suggestions.

I'm upgrade to a 244 gallon tank measuring 72x28x28 and am debating between:

-60 inch ATI sun power 8x80 watt

or

-hamilton cebu 3x250mh w/ 4x80 t5's

I'm really interested in going solely with T5's but Im not 100% that fixture would be enough.

Any insight? Is anyone else running a similar sized sps dominant tank with only t5?

I appreciate any advice.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

From my experience when I switched from MH's to T-5's I was able to reduce my total wattage in roughly half by using T-5's. So from an economic point of view with the cost of electricity the T-5's is the way to go.

Either combo will give you about the same total amount of light corals. But keep in mind that MH bulbs are slowly getting harder to come by. If you want a better system than either of these go with a combo of LED's and T-5's as the LED's surpass the efficiency of any other light source.
 
I like t5 but didn't think the ATI fixture would be enough power for my tank. In particular, the depth. Am I wrong?
 
clugo said:
I like t5 but didn't think the ATI fixture would be enough power for my tank. In particular, the depth. Am I wrong?
Click to expand...


How deep is your tank?

My ATI is 9" off the water in a 75 gal and I get 380 on parts of my sandbed
 
I spoke with Phan @ Advance Aquarist and Chris @ SS and both said the ATI Sunpower 8x80 would be plenty for my tank. Phan said they did part test with the fixture and were getting 500+ on the sand bed.

I think I'm going w/ the T5.
 
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