T5s Q&A

First off I would say that is an interesting lighting scheme.. I like the building to full power. I have also never seen many people work from the outside in. It should give you an interesting look.

As far as lamp placement goes, I am a fan of alternating lamps, but with that said, anecdotately when I switched my lamps from a more even alternated scheme to my current setup I am more pleased with the look, BUT that is because I have only 2 swithes so its 4 on then 4 others on later... Essentially I swapped one of my blues so the 4 initial lamps has 3 Actinic+ instead of the 2:2 white:blue it had before..

Anyway back to your question... I would if it was my setup and using your lighting scheme put the lamps in theis order...
1.Blue+
2.Fiji Purple
3.Aquablue
4.Aquablue
5.Blue+
6.Blue+
I think this would make the most sense according to your on/off scheme and would mimic the sun rising to full power more closely than any other combo I could think of...

 

great, thanks sooo much!!! I just finished with touch ups on my canopy earlier today so I might be able to get it over the tank tonight as long as everything is dried in a couple hours. Would it be better if I went from the inside out as opposed to outside in? It would take maybe 5 minutes to reprogram the lights, so its really not a big deal at all.

Also, do you see anything wrong with using a 96w jbj power compact ballast to run a single 80w T5 lamp? I wired up 2 of mine like that because I only had 2 workhorse 7's on hand. All the lamps fire up the same and the ones on the PC ballasts dont seem to be getting any hotter than the others.

~Will.

 

I also just found out that I have an ATI pro color bulb. The guy I got the T5's off gave it to me because he said it flickered a lot and didn't work right. I tested it in my setup and it works like a charm.

What are your thoughts of this bulb, and would you recommend I switch out anything in the list above with it?

Thanks again.

~Will.

 

The pro color has a fair amount of red... Doesn't put off as much PAR as I would assume. If you are going to run it put it in the center slot....

As for the program, I would leave it the way it is, outside in.

With the PC ballast, it works? Most PC ballasts will not light T5 lamps well, well they will light one but not more than that.. It has to do with the capacitor. WH ballasts will run multiple types of lamps whereas most PC ballasts are strictly for PC. If it works go with it but I would plan on swapping it out in the future.

 

Yeah, I was pretty surprised the single 96 watt PC ballast worked on a single 80watt T5 and was very easy and self explanatory to hook up. I will keep an eye out for another workhorse 7 tho as i would like to get my old PC bulbs over a very shallow frag tank I have in the works.

I looked up the pro color and cant quite nail down a par rating for it, i think one site said low 200's, and another said it was around 300. I guess theres too many variables involved. I fired up all the lights last night, and with the 2 aqua blues in the middle and the tank was a little too white for my liking. Today i'm going to swap out one with the pro color and see how it looks.

Thanks again for all the help!!

~Will.

 

So you tried the setup that I recommended, and you thought it was too white? You could try swapping the lamps around because to be honest with you the pro color is going to add more reds and yellows to the spectrum, and I assume when you say too white you want more blue correct?

Grim Reefer tested the pro color and I want to say the numbers he got were in the middle 200s. I will have to check again.

 

I have read all through this forum and I still do not know what to get as far as bulbs. You give really good personal advise to everyone so I am excited to get some of my own ;D I am looking for advice on bulbs for my Current Nova Extreme Pro (6 bulbs). I have owned the light fixture for one year now and have now been looking to upgrade the bulbs since I have heard the bulbs that come with it are just ok and I would like to keep some more light demanding/par demanding sps and lps. I have been reading nothing but good things about ATI and Giesemann bulbs. I have looked at a bunch of pics and love the crisp blue look. Since I have a RBTA, red, pink, and orange zoas, some red acros, a green slimer, orange and rainbow ricordias and a maxima clam I am wondering if this setup would work:
2 blue+, 2 blue special, 2 pro color

Then again I am open to anything and I mainly just want everything to grow well, pop in color, with a nice crisp blue. I hope six bulbs is enough to achieve something like this.
Thanks for the help

 

In my eyes to pro colors might overwhelm that tank and you will no longer have that "crisp blue" look you are trying to achieve... If you really want to high light the reds and things of that nature maybe swap one Pro color out for a KZ Fiji Purple... Personally blue lamps, in my eyes bring out orange, at least when you are running predominately blue... blue and orange are complimentary colors so when you run only say Actinic+ or Blue+ or oranges will really stand out!!

As far as what I would run to achieve the look but high light the red....

Probably 3 Blue/actinic+, 2 Aquablue+ and either a Procolor, Fiji Purple or GE 3000k lamp. I would only recommend one of the last mentioned lamps though...

Good luck!

 

Okay I am going to be setting up my new lighting on my 75 gallon and I am going to be using the T5 lighting I want to get around 350 watts in the tank allowing about 4 watts per gallon which should be enough for coral? I have a budget of around $300 is there such a good quality light out there? I have been researching for a few days now and there are so many variations. Oh and I want to be able to do the Dawn to Dusk affect.

Thanks for the help.

 

I think you are off to a good start Scott26 at least in regards to your convo's via PM..

Honestly what I would change about your setup is, instead of 4 OD lamps I would shoot for 6 ND lamps... A 4' OD lamp will be pulling about 80ish watts... BUT how does this equate to added PAR output? Hard to say, Ice Cap still hasn't put out any info or try to prove that the added watts=added PAR production. Or at least enough PAR increase to justify the added ballast costs, wattage consumption and heat produced. As far as OD lamps goes from what I have heard from other lamp nerds is that the longer lamps are the ones that benefit the most from being OD like 60" lamps.

As far as WPG go, when I had my 75 I had 5.2WPG of PC and didn't have much SPS growth or any good LPS growth for that matter, tank did well but not great. I now have about 3.5 WPG of T5 over my 180 and the growth in my SPS is unbelievable. Way beyond my expectations.

If it was my tank I would buy 2 Workhorse 7s...6 Aquactincs SLRs or if you want to have more coverage Aquaillumination(they are 2.5" wide) and the appropriate hardware, such as endcaps, stand offs and so on.

Many sites will have what you are looking for, if you want to go with the Aquactinic's SLRs(I would, only 2" wide) go to their internet site(aquactinics.com) and find what dealers carry them. The Aquaillumination are great but you will have only 1.5" on front and back of retro to access the tank if you center them, whereas the Aquactinics you will have 3"... Easier to get a hand in!!!

Good luck!