Ask Your T-5HO Questions Here

Thanks! i might go for these smaller T5s so i can get more in the hood but if you still cant find the end caps you are looking for then these people may be able to ship them to you!

http://www.bltdirect.co.uk/t5ballasts.htm

If i do go for the straighter bulbs what sort of mix would you suggest to keep a BTA... mine now has shied away from the MH and is sitting under the low light side of my tank with 30 watt T8s.. i dont want it to fade away!!!

Levi

 

ok i have a twenty gallon long with the coral life t-5s 18 watts each bulb. im getting another one. so in total ill be running 72 watts. is this going to be enough for anything... im sorry im new to t-5s. also are theses coralife lights good enough or should i get pcs like on my other tank?

 

Sounds like you are getting normal output T5's. I'd grab at least one HO with the good parabolic reflector. The reflector really gives T5's a big advantage.

You can get cheap T5 HO strip lights with a fair reflector built in from www.commodityaxis.com They won't do what the "real" T5's will but your tank isn't very big so they should do fine.

 

I just put on an ODYSEA 2x54 watt T5HO fixture over my 55 gal. Bought from Aquatraders. Love it it is quite bright and lets me get rid of the full hood to go open top for cooling. What I want to know is this - The fixture came with a 12000K and an Actinic tube and it has really change the appearance of the livestock colors. My Pink Anthias in particular has lost her bright blue eyes and the pink glow of her scales. My original lights were T8 Reef Sun 10000k. For a fish, live rock and some soft corals, can I get rid of the actinic and maybe to T5HO @ 1000k.

 

Order an Aquablue lamp to run with the 12K. The Odysea units are not real great so I assume they use cheap lamps. D&D or ATI have the best lamps I've seen. The best combo for a 2 lamp system would be Aquablue which is a 60/40 actinic daylight combo which is a very crisp white and a Blueplus which is very blue but not actinic. The Blueplus will fluoresce corals but it has a lot more visable light than actinics. With only 2 lamps I would stick to mushrooms and other low light stuff. You could run 2 aquablues and add a actinic strip light if you want a more blue look. The Helios T5 strip lights are dirt cheap and plenty good enough to add a little color.

 

has anyone used my brand of lights? ( for a twenty long im going to use two of the coralife t5 series) that 72 watts on a twenty long. i was wondering if anyone knew if these were HO's or not... anyways it is 72 watts. (and i now that watts mean squat if they are not producing the kelvins along with it) does anyone know the amount produced?

 

The HO T5 lamps are the following wattages.

24" 24 watts
36" 39 watts
48" 54 watts
60" 80 watts
72" 105 watts

 

it has two bulbs each unit. im going to run two units. on the box it reads "one 18 watt true actinic and one 18 watt 10000k true day light". thats 36 watts each fixture. so if i use two fixtures thats 72 watts. but does anyone know the amount of kelvins produced or has anyone used this brand???

 

Kelvin is the color of the lamp. What you want to be concerned with is the PAR which is the intensity of light in the spectrum range the critters can use, 400 to 700nm. I have done PAR readings on the good T5 systems to determine which parabolic reflector is the best but haven't done much with Normal output T5's or those with a flat reflector. I would guess your system will be about equal with PC's watt forwatt as far as the amount of light it will provide.

 

cool thank you so much! guess what... karma for you!!!