The T5 Q&a Thread - split

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No, your sense of reality and down right ignorance to admit LEDs > T5.

With t5 and MH you'd have to change out bulb every few months. Who's the sucker here?

U forgot to mention the extra c ost in electric to run the t5 and MH. We all know this and we still choose to not use LED.

Please move on to a different thread. Or have a full thought out adult response, or maybe ask a question to us that have used led and are back to old school light why we dumped the leds.

Roger
 
Any worry about heat on the wood? Its an 8x54 ATI fixture. I had to come up with something as the hanging kit dosnt have enough room to be used in canopy.
20131117_083202_zps48158dc2.jpg
 
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Heat on the wood isn't your problem. The problem is you will fry your ballasts because the fixture isn't properly ventilated at all. It needs to be open on the one end to let the hot air escape.
 
LOL@ T5

Led all the way. Get with the program ,folks!

Sorry I'll disgree with you.

I was one that started with MH's
Then progressed to T-5's and found them to be advantages all the way around.

Then about 2 years ago started playing with LED's. I found LED had both andvantages and disadvantages over T-5's. But I went to all LED's on some of my tanks.

Today I'm combining the two together. Each has there advantages over the other. T-5's do not compare for getting florescent colors to pop. However LED's are to color specific and leave weak spots in the color spectum. So running the combination of the two can give you advantages of both.
 
Can I get some opinions on photo period.

Stats:
8x54W Tek light
5 Blue+, 2 Coral+, 1 Purple+
48x24x18 tank, light 9" above water line

4 blue+ bulbs on for 12 hours (dusk/dawn)
other bulbs on for 7 hours

Corals seem a be a bit light in color and some people attribute that to too much light/photo period. I'm not running an ULNS system, so I don't think lack of nutrients is to blame. Should I cut my photo period back to 10/6? Keep as is? Give it a shot and see what happens? thanks.

Update on this:
Been about 10 days since I cut my photo period to 10 hours for 4 bulbs and 4 hours for 4. The color is starting to return to some corals and my growth has taken off.

When I got these lights and switched from LED, I started at 4/8 hours and was getting great growth. As I upped the lights to 7/12 my growth basically stopped and colors faded. Obviously I was hitting the corals with way too much light over a long period.
 
Wow, I never thought corals could have to much light. Sorry if I am off topic.

Marty


Update on this:
Been about 10 days since I cut my photo period to 10 hours for 4 bulbs and 4 hours for 4. The color is starting to return to some corals and my growth has taken off.

When I got these lights and switched from LED, I started at 4/8 hours and was getting great growth. As I upped the lights to 7/12 my growth basically stopped and colors faded. Obviously I was hitting the corals with way too much light over a long period.
 
So I have A Aquatic Life Set that I bought open Box it over a year old not I have had for little over 2 moths. Not sure if the bulbs were used or what. So I think I am just going to replace it I think. So the setup is (4) T5 HO and (2) 150w Metal Halide.

Current Setup

T5HO

(4)420/460 Aquatic Life Bulbs

HID

(2)10k 150w

Thinking about going with

T5 HO

Actinic
Blue+
Actinic
Purple+

HID

(2)14k 150w.

What you guys think. For my Mixed Reef 65 Gallon Tank.

Any thoughts on this setup?
 
Any thoughts on this setup?

I ran halides for about 7 years in a Combo fixture and the favorite look I had was all 4 blue + and my 14k phoenix. I personally would skip the purple+ I tried it and noticed the red hue directly under that one bulb and I removed it the next day..
 
Wow, I never thought corals could have to much light. Sorry if I am off topic.

Marty

Yesthat is being proven again and gain. Each coral has a minimum amount of light that it needs as well as maximium level they basicly shut down. Then there also a variable tolerance for longer spectrrumed light. Some corals will bleach out if they receive to much red light. Once the bleaching goes beyund a certain point the recovery of the coals is very questionable even f all conditions are readjusted to ideal.

This is one of the reasons where I very cautions when useing any lighting wether it is LED, T-5 or anything else about the red end of the spectrum. Yes some red light is benificial to many corals. But excess red light can cause bleaching. Now on tope of the is the fact that Cyno Bacteria loves red light so you can easily be hurting yourself it two different ways with excessive red light.
 
So I have A Aquatic Life Set that I bought open Box it over a year old not I have had for little over 2 moths. Not sure if the bulbs were used or what. So I think I am just going to replace it I think. So the setup is (4) T5 HO and (2) 150w Metal Halide.

Current Setup

T5HO

(4)420/460 Aquatic Life Bulbs

HID

(2)10k 150w

Thinking about going with

T5 HO

Actinic
Blue+
Actinic
Purple+

HID

(2)14k 150w.

What you guys think. For my Mixed Reef 65 Gallon Tank.

If it were mine I wuld go with all ATI Blue Plus bulbs. The MH's will give you more than enough white light. If you use the Atinics you will get a boost in the 420-420 nm light but also get some with the Blue plus bulbs. As far as the purple plus goes I see no need to add the red that it would boasting your spectrum with compared your bulbs.
 
Well I am Currently Using the Aquatic Life Version of the ATI Blue + and honestly I don't like the color I want a Richer blue to Purple look. That why I thought.

Actinic
Blue+
Actinic
Purple+

Because the HID will not be running most of time so I wanted the Darker blue pop I am looking.

But I guess I could go

Actinic
Blue+
Purple+
Blue+
 
Yesthat is being proven again and gain. Each coral has a minimum amount of light that it needs as well as maximium level they basicly shut down. Then there also a variable tolerance for longer spectrrumed light. Some corals will bleach out if they receive to much red light. Once the bleaching goes beyund a certain point the recovery of the coals is very questionable even f all conditions are readjusted to ideal.

This is one of the reasons where I very cautions when useing any lighting wether it is LED, T-5 or anything else about the red end of the spectrum. Yes some red light is benificial to many corals. But excess red light can cause bleaching. Now on tope of the is the fact that Cyno Bacteria loves red light so you can easily be hurting yourself it two different ways with excessive red light.

Ok so is pink, purple and violet included in that red light bleaching isssue?
 
Ok so is pink, purple and violet included in that red light bleaching isssue?

Violet is not purple. Not even close actually. Purple is a mix of red AND blue. Violet is violet. Though they make look similar to the human eye, they are in fact very different.
 
Yesthat is being proven again and gain. Each coral has a minimum amount of light that it needs as well as maximium level they basicly shut down. Then there also a variable tolerance for longer spectrrumed light. Some corals will bleach out if they receive to much red light. Once the bleaching goes beyund a certain point the recovery of the coals is very questionable even f all conditions are readjusted to ideal.

This is one of the reasons where I very cautions when useing any lighting wether it is LED, T-5 or anything else about the red end of the spectrum. Yes some red light is benificial to many corals. But excess red light can cause bleaching. Now on tope of the is the fact that Cyno Bacteria loves red light so you can easily be hurting yourself it two different ways with excessive red light.

So how much red is too much in your opinion/experience? I am playing with my 8 bulb T5 setup with some extra bulbs I have trying to decide on what I like as I prepare for bulb replacement time in December. I am ready to get rid of the GE 6500 bulb. For the last year I have run 5 blue plus, 1 purple plus, 1 coral plus, and one GE 6500. I was thinking of just switching the GE for an aqua blue special to take the spectrum a tad bluer but in my messing around with leftover bulbs, I tried 5 blue plus, 2 purple plus, and 1 coral plus in place of the GE bulb. I actual kind if like the look!! Is 2 purple plus and 1 coral plus too much red in your opinion ( not look wise but coral health wise) when the other 5 bulbs are all blue plus?

Thanks,
Joe
 
Ok so is pink, purple and violet included in that red light bleaching isssue?

While I hater to do it here the only way to answer this is to explain the basic color spectrum and the human eye. The eye has three sensors for normal daylight color. They are red, green and blue. When the eye sees light it sees them as as the activation of these sensors in different levels which feeds the grain signals and thmind determines what color we are seeing.

If onlky the red sensor is activated we see the color red, if the red and green sensior is equaly avtivated we see yellow. if only the green is activated we see green, if green and blue is activated we see aqua, if only the blue is activated we see blue. Finally if we the blue and red is activated we see purple. Now keep in mind the sensors in the eye are tuned for max sensitivity of red around 640nm light, green around 530 nm light, and blue around 480 nm light. But they are wide spectrumed so if we see light at 580nm it will activate our red and green sensor causing us o see it as yellow or yellow orange. If all the sensoirs are activated equaly it will appear as white light.

So from our basic color sensors to see peopl we are actualy seeing light that is activating our red sensors and blue sensors. If we also increase the light activating the green sensor the color make look more pink.

However the eye color sensnors are very poor in low lighting situations. Therefore we have want is called noght vission which is activated mainly by light in shorter wave lenghts than the blue sensors normally sense. In a true darker enviroment our eyes sense a more black and white image which the interputation of the brain. However if the right level of these longer wave lenghtlight is detected do to chemicals in the eye called visual purple they become inturputed by the brain as light which is smular to whatwe recognize as violet or purple.

So in reality when we are talking about purple r violet it could be a combination of red wavelenghts and blue wave lenghts or light in the very short wavelenghts that are shorter than blue light.

As an example if you got LEDs that have a very narrow band width and compared there colors. a 470nm LED would look fairly true blue to 85% of people. The 455 nm royal blue LED would look like it was a blue with a slight purple tint to 86% of people. a 430 nm LED would look more purple with a strong blue tint. and a 380 nm LED would look purple. Yet another light source with light near equal levels of light at 470nm and 640 nm may appear to a very simular purple color to light at just 380 nm.

So the end answer is no all purple light is not detrimental to corals It depends on how the purple is created and how intense the red is if there is a strong red element. Then you can complicate the matter eve more so with corals as some deep water corals are cvvery sensative to red light and others shallow water corals even require some red light.

Now I'll also through another ringer in the situation as extremly short wave leght light is also detrimental to corals as it is to humans in creating sun burn, skin cancer, and cataracs of the eye. However most comercial light sources do not produce enough light at these levels to be of concerned especialy do the fact the even clear glass will filter out a makority of that light.
 
So how much red is too much in your opinion/experience? I am playing with my 8 bulb T5 setup with some extra bulbs I have trying to decide on what I like as I prepare for bulb replacement time in December. I am ready to get rid of the GE 6500 bulb. For the last year I have run 5 blue plus, 1 purple plus, 1 coral plus, and one GE 6500. I was thinking of just switching the GE for an aqua blue special to take the spectrum a tad bluer but in my messing around with leftover bulbs, I tried 5 blue plus, 2 purple plus, and 1 coral plus in place of the GE bulb. I actual kind if like the look!! Is 2 purple plus and 1 coral plus too much red in your opinion ( not look wise but coral health wise) when the other 5 bulbs are all blue plus?

Thanks,
Joe

What I have found is that in a fixtture of 6 or mote bulbs her following seems to work fine.

1 GE 6,500K plus 2 ATI purple plus.
1 ATI Aqua Blue Special plus 1 ATI purple plus
using Coral Plus as your white bulbs look at
2 Coral plus = roughly the same amount of red as you get from one purple plus. and slightly less white than from the Aqua Blue. purple plus combo.

The idea is to just use enough purple plus to remove any yellow or green tinting from the other bulbs. The balance between the final combinations white and blue light however is a very personal matter. Some people would be happy with 1 Coral plus and 7 Blue Plus others would consider this too blue and would be much happier with 1 GE and 2 purple plus in a 6 bulb fixture.
 
What I have found is that in a fixtture of 6 or mote bulbs her following seems to work fine.

1 GE 6,500K plus 2 ATI purple plus.
1 ATI Aqua Blue Special plus 1 ATI purple plus
using Coral Plus as your white bulbs look at
2 Coral plus = roughly the same amount of red as you get from one purple plus. and slightly less white than from the Aqua Blue. purple plus combo.

The idea is to just use enough purple plus to remove any yellow or green tinting from the other bulbs. The balance between the final combinations white and blue light however is a very personal matter. Some people would be happy with 1 Coral plus and 7 Blue Plus others would consider this too blue and would be much happier with 1 GE and 2 purple plus in a 6 bulb fixture.

This is my plan.....for now LOL. I am going to order 5 blue plus, 2 purple plus, 2 coral plus, and 1 aqua blue special. I will then play with combinations and see what I like the look of most using 8 of the 10 bulbs ordered.
 
55 gal mostly sps mixed reef. Aquatic life 4 bulb fixture. Current lineup:

Blue +
Coral +
Blue +
Purple +

I was pretty fired up about this combo at first, but with all 4 bulbs firing I just don't get as much green pop as I want. I'm wondering if my colors may be improved

Between my current setup or the following:

Blue+
Coral+
Blue+
Coral+

Or

Blue+
Coral+
Blue+
Blue+

...which would be best for sps growth, water quality the same. Kinda wanting a change but haven't seen too many pictures of the second two proposed combos. Naturally I'd like to improve my colors but not at the price of growth
 
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