The T5 Q&a Thread - split
- Thread starter eagle9252
- Start date
Michigan Mike
Freedom costs a buckofive
6x24 unless your SPS crazy.
8x24 for SPS crammed in every square inch.
The nice thing about the extra bulbs is you can have multiple actinic bulbs and create a much more colorful tank with the extra bulbs, but its not important for your needs.
I like the old Sunpower. Cheaper, I think it looks good, and much easier to change a bad ballast with it compared to the powermodule. Dimming is not important to me.
TropTrea
New member
Going to a couple comments from oters over the last. The K temperature of the bulb is a reference to the dominant wavelenght produced by the bulb. It does not give the ratio of white to blue where a lower K bulb would be whiter compared to a higher K bulb that would be bluer.
Some examples are
1,700K Bulb peaks at 590 nm which is Orange
2,700K Bulb peaks at 580 nm which is Yellow
8,000K bulb peaks at 520 nm which is Green
10,000K bulb peaks at 508 nm
20,000K bulb peaks at 502 nm
40,000K bulb peaks at 597 nm
True Blue is 460 nm
Atinic Blue is 440 to 420 nm
Near UV is 380 nm to 420nm
From here we can see a 6,500K bulb is slightly more yellow tan a 10,000K bulb. However it does not tell us the ratio of the various other wave lenghts of light . One bulb could have only light produced at 500 nm and 516 nm and look extremly green, while the other light source may have a very even distribution of light from 450 nm to 630 nm but look very white.
Thius is the case with two Bulbs that GE makes namely the 5,000K and the 6,500K bulb. The 5,000K is extremly flat through the entire spectrum and the 6,500K is also flat but has a average the same as the sun does at mid day.
When we are comparing lighting sorces to create combinations in the Reefs we are usualy adding a bulb with a strong average in the 420nm to 460 nm range. The K scale only takes an average light of 495nm into consideration as an actual infinate K temperature. Many of our aquariums are illuminated with light averaging much shorter wave lenghts that 490 nm range.
Another thing to consider is the at wavelenghts shorter than 460 the eye itself does not see this as pure blue light. Thius is why we name this light ultra Violet as the human eye interpulates it the same as if we were seeing a combination of both red and blue together.
Getting back to the basics the blue spectrum and atinic spectrum mainly between 420 and 460 nm is the most impoertant part of the spectrum for healthy corals. In nature this account for between 70% and 99% of the light they receive dependent on how deep they were in the ocean. Many corals that use in our aquariums need some light at basicly all the visible wavelenghts only at a much lower level. So for meeting the minimum needs of the coral a single bulb like the coral plus with the lowest amount of full spectrum lighting is probably adequate.
However with 99% blue light the only true colors that we will see in our aquariums would be what is floresced by the corals. There are many corals that have fantastic color they can display also with reflected light. Simularly fish and other living creratuers will not show there colors if they only receive blue light to reflect back at us. That beautiful underwater photo was probably taken with an underwater full spectrum fash unit.
This is where the debate comes in. How much "white" light do I need to add? There is no simple answer. The more "white" light you add the better your fish will look and better the reflected colors from your corals will look. But also the less noticable the florescense in those corals will appear.
For me The solution was to have 3 phases of lighting on my tanks. Phase 1 I refer to as pre dawn to post dusk. This is where I'm using either pure atinic or 454nm LED's. The only thing visable in my tank are basicly the popping florescent colors.
Phase II is when the Blue Plus bulbs come in and they brighten up the tank. The florescents still pop fantasticly but you now are also starting to see some of the reflective colors. But yellow fish still look dark brown and reds are deep marron.
The final phase is when I add the mid day lighting mainly the GE 6,500K to bring out the rest of the colors. And yes compared to an aqua blue special or coral plus the ge 6,5000 does make the red fish look red, the yellow fish look yellow, and brings out the pink reflective colors in the corals that were priorly lost.
Some examples are
1,700K Bulb peaks at 590 nm which is Orange
2,700K Bulb peaks at 580 nm which is Yellow
8,000K bulb peaks at 520 nm which is Green
10,000K bulb peaks at 508 nm
20,000K bulb peaks at 502 nm
40,000K bulb peaks at 597 nm
True Blue is 460 nm
Atinic Blue is 440 to 420 nm
Near UV is 380 nm to 420nm
From here we can see a 6,500K bulb is slightly more yellow tan a 10,000K bulb. However it does not tell us the ratio of the various other wave lenghts of light . One bulb could have only light produced at 500 nm and 516 nm and look extremly green, while the other light source may have a very even distribution of light from 450 nm to 630 nm but look very white.
Thius is the case with two Bulbs that GE makes namely the 5,000K and the 6,500K bulb. The 5,000K is extremly flat through the entire spectrum and the 6,500K is also flat but has a average the same as the sun does at mid day.
When we are comparing lighting sorces to create combinations in the Reefs we are usualy adding a bulb with a strong average in the 420nm to 460 nm range. The K scale only takes an average light of 495nm into consideration as an actual infinate K temperature. Many of our aquariums are illuminated with light averaging much shorter wave lenghts that 490 nm range.
Another thing to consider is the at wavelenghts shorter than 460 the eye itself does not see this as pure blue light. Thius is why we name this light ultra Violet as the human eye interpulates it the same as if we were seeing a combination of both red and blue together.
Getting back to the basics the blue spectrum and atinic spectrum mainly between 420 and 460 nm is the most impoertant part of the spectrum for healthy corals. In nature this account for between 70% and 99% of the light they receive dependent on how deep they were in the ocean. Many corals that use in our aquariums need some light at basicly all the visible wavelenghts only at a much lower level. So for meeting the minimum needs of the coral a single bulb like the coral plus with the lowest amount of full spectrum lighting is probably adequate.
However with 99% blue light the only true colors that we will see in our aquariums would be what is floresced by the corals. There are many corals that have fantastic color they can display also with reflected light. Simularly fish and other living creratuers will not show there colors if they only receive blue light to reflect back at us. That beautiful underwater photo was probably taken with an underwater full spectrum fash unit.
This is where the debate comes in. How much "white" light do I need to add? There is no simple answer. The more "white" light you add the better your fish will look and better the reflected colors from your corals will look. But also the less noticable the florescense in those corals will appear.
For me The solution was to have 3 phases of lighting on my tanks. Phase 1 I refer to as pre dawn to post dusk. This is where I'm using either pure atinic or 454nm LED's. The only thing visable in my tank are basicly the popping florescent colors.
Phase II is when the Blue Plus bulbs come in and they brighten up the tank. The florescents still pop fantasticly but you now are also starting to see some of the reflective colors. But yellow fish still look dark brown and reds are deep marron.
The final phase is when I add the mid day lighting mainly the GE 6,500K to bring out the rest of the colors. And yes compared to an aqua blue special or coral plus the ge 6,5000 does make the red fish look red, the yellow fish look yellow, and brings out the pink reflective colors in the corals that were priorly lost.
Michigan Mike
Freedom costs a buckofive
That is why it is difficult to look at a spectral chart for determining how a bulb looks.
I didn't want to get into all the nm range as I wasn't sure exactly what the numbers where offhand so thanks for sharing that info Dennis.
I didn't want to get into all the nm range as I wasn't sure exactly what the numbers where offhand so thanks for sharing that info Dennis.
Michigan Mike
Freedom costs a buckofive
Violet -380-450nm
Blue - 450-495nm
Green- 495-470nm
Yellow- 495-570nm
Orange- 570-590nm
Red- 620-750nm
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/color-spectrum-chart.html
This can complicate things too much for many people who don't care.
So for us that are in the "hobby" we tend to make judgements that are different than the spectral graphs as a lot of us know- the aquablue special isn't a 15,000k bulb as the manufacturer's charts say, we count it more like a 10,000-11,000k bulb.
420nm violet/actinic
460nm blue
5000-6700k yellow/yellow-white
10,000k white/yellow
12,000k white
14,000-15,000k white/blue (Phoenix 14k is closer to a 20k bulb)
20,000k blue/white
22,000+ deep blue etc...
Blue - 450-495nm
Green- 495-470nm
Yellow- 495-570nm
Orange- 570-590nm
Red- 620-750nm
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/color-spectrum-chart.html
This can complicate things too much for many people who don't care.
So for us that are in the "hobby" we tend to make judgements that are different than the spectral graphs as a lot of us know- the aquablue special isn't a 15,000k bulb as the manufacturer's charts say, we count it more like a 10,000-11,000k bulb.
420nm violet/actinic
460nm blue
5000-6700k yellow/yellow-white
10,000k white/yellow
12,000k white
14,000-15,000k white/blue (Phoenix 14k is closer to a 20k bulb)
20,000k blue/white
22,000+ deep blue etc...
Michigan Mike
Freedom costs a buckofive
Last edited:
OK I have a question that the T5 guru's here should help me with.
I'm planning a new build that will be SPS dominant and already have the 10x39w PM. I have seen a lot of 3ft fixtures on 4ft tanks and 10 bulb units on 36 deep tanks, so i'm sure you can all guess from that, im planning a 48x36 footprint build.
Would this work well if I keep the height of the water column roughly 20 inches and a pretty well planned layout?
I plan to run
6 KZ super blues
2 KZ new generations
2 KZ Fiji purple
I have a par meter coming next week and plan on doing a foot print of the fixtures output and ive built a spectroscope to have a go at measuring the spectrum change over time!
Chris
I'm planning a new build that will be SPS dominant and already have the 10x39w PM. I have seen a lot of 3ft fixtures on 4ft tanks and 10 bulb units on 36 deep tanks, so i'm sure you can all guess from that, im planning a 48x36 footprint build.
Would this work well if I keep the height of the water column roughly 20 inches and a pretty well planned layout?
I plan to run
6 KZ super blues
2 KZ new generations
2 KZ Fiji purple
I have a par meter coming next week and plan on doing a foot print of the fixtures output and ive built a spectroscope to have a go at measuring the spectrum change over time!
Chris
Michigan Mike
Freedom costs a buckofive
Awesome dimensions, jealous.
Ya 3' fixture over 4' tank usually woks out pretty well. Just keep SPS directly under the fixture & LPS & other low-light corals just outside the fixture.
Should be a solid combo too, nice & blue, just how I like it.
TropTrea
New member
I little caution on the par meters. Par meters calculate the total amount of light generated between 360 nm and and 680 nm. It is possible to have a lighting source with a strong peak at 600nm to give you a very high PAR reading yet the light at 600nm is of close to no use for corals at all. The other issue is that sensativity of most inexpensive par Meters peaks at around 520 nm and galls off considerably on the lower and uper ends of the spectrum. So light in the near UV to UV range will not incr4ease the PAR reading as much as light in the 520 nm range. A side note here is that the human eye is most sensative to light in the green spectrum as well.
For our Corals we are looking at producing a lot of light in the near UV and Blue spectrum with only a little amount of light to please our eyes in the longer wave lenghts. So if you took two fisxtures of 6 bulbs and put one fixture with 1 coral plus, 1 atinic and 4 Blue plus bulbs and in the other fixture put in 6 GE 6,500K bulbs what would be the difference. Well the GE 6,500K fixture would give you fantasticly high PAR meter readings but you would get very little coral growth and possibly even the bleaching out of many corals from excessive red light. The blue heavy combination fixture would have much lower PAR reading but the coral growth would be fantastic from the lighting stand point.
Now going back to the K ratings. Yes I will say that the the rated K ratings and true K ratings are very misleading and can be far apart from the average persons understanding of them. Lighting sources strong in Blues or near UV light are not on the K scale even. The K rating is not how white or deep the color of the bulb is but how close the color is compared to a piece of Iron heated to that Kelvin Temperature. When we heat this iron is initialy ratiates invisable IR light then moves to red and progresses through the color spectrum with its hotest point before evaporation bing in the aqua part of the spectrum. Therefore trying to compare it to a 460nm light source is actualy putting it beyound infinity in the K scale.
If individuals were in the hobby back in the 1980's they will remember that the standard for reef lighting was a combination of 10,000K and Atinic lighting usualy in a 50/50 combination. Since then the hobby has evolved as we have learned a lot. Atinic lighing not only produces the nice 420 nm light but also produced light in wave lenghta as low as 360nm that we found were detrimental to corals. We also found that light at wavelenghts in the blue spectrum as high as 460 nm were more important to corals than the 380 nm to 420 nm range.
Oh and we cannot forget the personal issue of color preference to the human eye. A prime example of this is when I did some experimenting I got comments from several people why is that tank so pink. I actualy did not have any red lighting on it but I had lighting that was very strong in the near UV range. To me it did not look pink but it looked blue. Some people hate the GE 6,500 because it looks to yellow others do not detect that yellow hue. Some people want ta tank that looks like what they would see if they were diving at 100 meters. Others want there tank to look like the photographs you see of underwater corals taken with full spectrum flash units.
To me the thing is to allow people to make there own intelegent choice on what they want. Start with a basic that this is the bluest you can go and still suport corals. Then make sure you inform them of the range they can go to gradualy brighten up the tank to the point that it is on the edge of being a pure white but still able to suport corals. Then let them pick what would make them happy and how to change it if there choice was not initialy perfect for them. Please note personal choice also changes over time.
Ah and another note. How clear is your water? The clearity and tint of your water will also effect how tank will look. A fresh starting out tank should have crystal clear water. But often as the tank cycles the water can take on a color tint which will effect the way the lighting looks. When you change your water siphon sme into a clear plastic bucket and look if it is perfectly clear.
For our Corals we are looking at producing a lot of light in the near UV and Blue spectrum with only a little amount of light to please our eyes in the longer wave lenghts. So if you took two fisxtures of 6 bulbs and put one fixture with 1 coral plus, 1 atinic and 4 Blue plus bulbs and in the other fixture put in 6 GE 6,500K bulbs what would be the difference. Well the GE 6,500K fixture would give you fantasticly high PAR meter readings but you would get very little coral growth and possibly even the bleaching out of many corals from excessive red light. The blue heavy combination fixture would have much lower PAR reading but the coral growth would be fantastic from the lighting stand point.
Now going back to the K ratings. Yes I will say that the the rated K ratings and true K ratings are very misleading and can be far apart from the average persons understanding of them. Lighting sources strong in Blues or near UV light are not on the K scale even. The K rating is not how white or deep the color of the bulb is but how close the color is compared to a piece of Iron heated to that Kelvin Temperature. When we heat this iron is initialy ratiates invisable IR light then moves to red and progresses through the color spectrum with its hotest point before evaporation bing in the aqua part of the spectrum. Therefore trying to compare it to a 460nm light source is actualy putting it beyound infinity in the K scale.
If individuals were in the hobby back in the 1980's they will remember that the standard for reef lighting was a combination of 10,000K and Atinic lighting usualy in a 50/50 combination. Since then the hobby has evolved as we have learned a lot. Atinic lighing not only produces the nice 420 nm light but also produced light in wave lenghta as low as 360nm that we found were detrimental to corals. We also found that light at wavelenghts in the blue spectrum as high as 460 nm were more important to corals than the 380 nm to 420 nm range.
Oh and we cannot forget the personal issue of color preference to the human eye. A prime example of this is when I did some experimenting I got comments from several people why is that tank so pink. I actualy did not have any red lighting on it but I had lighting that was very strong in the near UV range. To me it did not look pink but it looked blue. Some people hate the GE 6,500 because it looks to yellow others do not detect that yellow hue. Some people want ta tank that looks like what they would see if they were diving at 100 meters. Others want there tank to look like the photographs you see of underwater corals taken with full spectrum flash units.
To me the thing is to allow people to make there own intelegent choice on what they want. Start with a basic that this is the bluest you can go and still suport corals. Then make sure you inform them of the range they can go to gradualy brighten up the tank to the point that it is on the edge of being a pure white but still able to suport corals. Then let them pick what would make them happy and how to change it if there choice was not initialy perfect for them. Please note personal choice also changes over time.
Ah and another note. How clear is your water? The clearity and tint of your water will also effect how tank will look. A fresh starting out tank should have crystal clear water. But often as the tank cycles the water can take on a color tint which will effect the way the lighting looks. When you change your water siphon sme into a clear plastic bucket and look if it is perfectly clear.
Michigan Mike
Freedom costs a buckofive
You honestly think you wouldn't have fantastic growth with a fixture full of GE6500 bulbs? I doubt you could get better growth than that!
Wow...
In very shallow lagoons where the sun has a lot of red/yellow spectrum still the corals are beautiful and colorful, the deeper you go the more blue spectrum is present and corals look ugly .
I used to have a ge6500 (i own enough of them still) for the reason of having faster growth and bringing out the green colors in my corals. Remember the old days of 6500k halides? Nothing wrong with them at all, we just like the flourescence in the 420-460nm range more these days & bulbs have evolved to cater to this. If all I wanted was growth I would use low K light.
10k halides have an huge amount of 420nm in them with peaks in red & yellow etc..but way more 420nm than a 20,000k radium. Basically a radium is a large 460nm spike.
I'm also a firm believer in high PAR, even if its not full spectrum. You can have the perfect mix of all the "important wavelengths" but without the proper intensity it won't grow coral, it just doesn't make up for high PAR.
Wow...
In very shallow lagoons where the sun has a lot of red/yellow spectrum still the corals are beautiful and colorful, the deeper you go the more blue spectrum is present and corals look ugly .
I used to have a ge6500 (i own enough of them still) for the reason of having faster growth and bringing out the green colors in my corals. Remember the old days of 6500k halides? Nothing wrong with them at all, we just like the flourescence in the 420-460nm range more these days & bulbs have evolved to cater to this. If all I wanted was growth I would use low K light.
10k halides have an huge amount of 420nm in them with peaks in red & yellow etc..but way more 420nm than a 20,000k radium. Basically a radium is a large 460nm spike.
I'm also a firm believer in high PAR, even if its not full spectrum. You can have the perfect mix of all the "important wavelengths" but without the proper intensity it won't grow coral, it just doesn't make up for high PAR.
Last edited:
DiscusHeckel
Acropora Gardener
I echo Michigan Mike. You would get the fastest growth with 6500K, but coral colouration would not be optimum due to excessive zooxanthellate growth.
Michigan Mike
Freedom costs a buckofive
Also all blue plus bulbs would have very high PAR unlike a 20,000k halide which has lower PAR than their 6500-10,000k cousins. While t5 is awesome with blue bulbs, no loss of PAR!
The only reason a PAR meter would read less PAR is because they don't measure certain blue'ish &violet spectrum as accurately.
The only reason a PAR meter would read less PAR is because they don't measure certain blue'ish &violet spectrum as accurately.
TropTrea
New member
As was earlier stated it will work but will be extremly blue. It is also a little questinable as some of the mid wave lenghts are missing that some corals could use. I would substitute a coral plus in place of the purple plus that would be a little less red but but give you just a hint more in the yellow and green range.
TropTrea
New member
Yes that is an important thing that many people find hard to understand. But there is also the factor that corals have various chemicals in them and different chemicals reley on different wave lenghts of light.
So you can have an all blue tank that has a fantastic PAR but some corals simply may not end up doing well because they may need some light in the other parts of the spectrum. While it is true they may not need much red or yellow they still have a need in that part of the spectrum.
Someone once made a spectrum graph of the light in the ocean at various levels is in looked like a basic sine wave. With a peak at around 445nm and dropping to near 0 at 380 nm on the low end and at 660 nm. However at each level they measure deeper in the ocean the amount of light at 415 nm and at 540 nm dropped off in half whale there was only a little loss at the 445 level.
TropTrea
New member
Yes this is true but you also need to keep two important things into consideration.
First that is that the corals that gorwo in these shallow lagoons are not the same corals as grow in the deeper reefs. While a few of them will survive at various levels they will also have shifts in there color balance based on where they located and what light hits them.
Secondly While I agree that a 6,500K light bulb is probably the closest thing to natural sunlight at the surface as soon as you start moving those light waves through the water the spectrum starts changing. I believe it is already at 2 meters in debt that the amount of red light is already reduced by more than 50%, while the blue light is reduced by only about 10%. Simularly the UV light is like the red light and is reduced drasticly.
TropTrea
New member
This takes me back to when I had my store. One of my suppiers handled UVL, Coralife, and Pentplex bulbs. But he decided to drop the UVL line. After two months of discountiong his inventory he put out a super discount on mixed lots of 48 bulbs of the same lenght. I bought 2 boxes of 48" and one of 36". To this day I still have some unused bulbs in my basement.
For years after that I ran a combination of 3 super Atinic, 3 Atinic Whites, and 2 454nm Blues. To me it just seemed a little too green but I had loads of the bulbs and the corals seemed to loved it for growth.
Later I swapped in an ATI purple plus for an atinic and it realy helped decrease the green look and eventualy I was running two purples, three 454 Blues and 3 Atinic Whites. Again much less green tint than prior and actualy a much brighter over all look.
Through the years I moved further away from UVL and more to the ATI bulbs. Now I'm running my main tank on 1 GE 6500, 2 Purple plus and 5 Blue Plus bulbs.
The last ATI blue plus bulbs I purchased to me seem slightly greener than the prior batches I had used. Right now I'm looking at the ATI Blue plus as a Blue,Bluegreen color compared to a UVL being a BLue-Blue Violet hue.
Going back to the greeness in the UVL bulbs. UVL does not have a bulb with a strong red part of its spectrum with the exception of the red sun. Since the human eye is most sensative to green light it will pick up green quicker than any other color. But the only way to overpower the green to your human eye is with red. The problem with the red sea sun is in my mind it has way too much red. In combination with strong blue bulbs it will fool the eye to see purples and violets . With strong Greens it will trick the eye to see more yellows or yellow greens.
My personal preference is that for one GE 6,500K two purple plus bulbs neutralizes any yellw green hues perfectly. And then with 3 to 5 blue Plus or other strong blue bulbs you get a nice balance.
Acclimation time ?
Acclimation time ?
Hey guys, I am replacing a mix of 161w PC, 150 HQI ,96w wave point T5s. My tank is 60x18x20 with xenia,LPS shrooms ect. I got a LET 6x 54w retro with the standard mix of ATI bulbs. I was thinking of starting out with 10hrs of P+ and B+ , 6hrs B+ B+ and GE65k /B+ for 4 hrs Then waiting a week add 1hr on the B+s ,wait a week add another hour,then do the same with the last set. To much light to start or not enough? My current lights are @ year old ...
Thanks
Acclimation time ?
Hey guys, I am replacing a mix of 161w PC, 150 HQI ,96w wave point T5s. My tank is 60x18x20 with xenia,LPS shrooms ect. I got a LET 6x 54w retro with the standard mix of ATI bulbs. I was thinking of starting out with 10hrs of P+ and B+ , 6hrs B+ B+ and GE65k /B+ for 4 hrs Then waiting a week add 1hr on the B+s ,wait a week add another hour,then do the same with the last set. To much light to start or not enough? My current lights are @ year old ...
Thanks
Michigan Mike
Freedom costs a buckofive
I'd start with 6-8 hours and go more if you find everything is okay and if its actually beneficial to go longer.
I only run 7-8 hours total a day and some days I don't run that long, sometimes it is more (if company is over). I really don't believe 10-12 hours is beneficial, corals don't need "really need" more than 7 or 8 hours IMO.
If someone wants to prove that 10-12 hours is better than 6-8 hours go ahead.
I've seen awesome growth in very awesome tanks with high power halides that ran 5 hours a day.
I only run 7-8 hours total a day and some days I don't run that long, sometimes it is more (if company is over). I really don't believe 10-12 hours is beneficial, corals don't need "really need" more than 7 or 8 hours IMO.
If someone wants to prove that 10-12 hours is better than 6-8 hours go ahead.
I've seen awesome growth in very awesome tanks with high power halides that ran 5 hours a day.
Similar threads
