Which combination of T5's work best?

Marlinman,
What brand bulbs did buildyouraquarium.com send you. I emailed them, and they refused to tell me. They would only tell me that they were UL approved...so I wasn't too impressed with their customer service or product knowledge, plus all their product descriptions have a ton of errors in them, either bulb type, # of bulbs, # of ballasts, dimensions... How is the overall quality?

 

I am using 3 bags of Chemi-pure carbon and a bag of phoslock in the sump. The green algae seems to subside when the daylights are off. I honestly think getting 14000K bulbs might help. One good thing is all my fish and coral are ok. I recently put in about 5 pieces of aquacultured Florida rock. Could it be the cheatomorpha that I put in the fuge? I'm running a PC light 24/7 in the fuge. Should I run it at night only? I never had a refugium before. There is a lot of green algae in the fuge. I attached some pics I took at midnight and you can easily see the algae in the fuge, the bags of media in the sump, the refugium light fixture and a picture of the tank at night. Should I scrape the algae off the acrylic walls in the fuge? Anybody out there that can help please email me at [email protected] thanks.

 

The bulbs are 4 x 420 blue actinics and 4 x 10K daylight bulbs the brand is from Catalina Aquarium.

http://www.catalinaaquarium.com/pop...age=6&osCsid=12a84ae5ab47d3ec7af39042c6de1fc4

http://www.catalinaaquarium.com/product_info.php?products_id=1423

I sent them an email for any help they can give me.
Thanks for checking. This is the third T5 fixture I've bought from them and the fixture is a fine product. There has to be a simple explanation for this and it's probably a combination of all the above.

 

"put more actinics in and less 10k. replace the 10ks with 460nms. you could also get a uv sterilizer."
This is a copy of the email I received from Catalina Aquarium. What does anyone think about that?

 

Robin, who has worked at my LFS for over 15 years tells me he starts out new bulbs in a tank for 2 or 3 hours and lets the time expand as he sees fit. This makes sense to me. I still want to see different tank lighting setups for myself. Sounds like the plan for now. I did add a UV sterizer.

 

I think I'm going to add 2 12K-15K bulbs for color and take away some of the starkness. What is the difference between 420mn and 460mn on the blues? The strerilizer is clearing up the water nicely.

 

460 is more usable for corals, but 420 gives the cool glow effect. so maybe more 460, but one 420 for the glow.

 

Little more on t5 bulbs

I got my h.o. t5 8 x 54 fixture from buildyouraquarium. It has been running for about 5 months fixture is nice runs cool. The look is a little dull has 4 10k 4 attnic. Can you tell me about a little more about ULV combo do I use 6600 k for 2 bulbs and 2 10k and 4 super attnic. Thanks

 

I'm curious about your tank. What size and if it was new when you put in the lights. The algae is settling down a bit in miy tank as I cut 2 hours off the daylights. I would like to mix things up with the nm's and Kelvin's and have 2 420mn blue - 2 460 mn blue - 2 10K white - 2 14K-20K white. I'm not sure about the last one yet. I want to see the difference myself. I might mix them up. Maybe 1 14K and 1 20K. Anyone have any suggestions?

 

Hi marlinman I have a 90gal. Yes I got the light when I started my tank about 5 months now. I was thinking of trying something like that as well. I'am not sure what came with mine as fas as attnic's 420 or 460. I think that there is a better quality bulb out there. Not sure if that will make a difference. I read your alge problem are you using r.o./d.i. water. I can put some pics up of my light and tank if you would like.