Good call Bob,
I was wondering the same thing.

I'll see if I can get any further info on the tank.

Here we go...comments from someone who has visited the tank!!

3000l tank
3.5 m x 0.8m x 0.6m dimension (I think it works out
to be 900 gallon ??) glass 15 cm thick

changed from HQI to T-5 in Aug 2001 (so, he has been
using T-5 for almost 2 1/2 year now)

T-5 used: 120 cm long each tube (4 feet)
32 x T-5 used all together each 54 w
4 banks
each bank with 3 x blue
4 x sun
1 x actinic

Advantages of T-5:
1)life span of 5 years as compared to 1/2 to 1 year on
HQI
2)much lower electirc cost to run
3)cool (yeah, I defitely could tell you that because I
was in his reef tank room for one afternoon)
4)no light frickling
5)coral colours are better (subjective ????)

One disadvantage of T-5...no frickling / rippling
shadow over the corals like those MH light. So, some
people find it boring.

Brad, Thanks for the info. But I still find it strange people post photo's of others but yet don't give them credit for them? I'm not refering to this post only. As a person that enjoys take and sharing photo's I'd like credit if people use my photo's.

Glass is 6" thick??? Holy sh**!! :biggrin:

Here's my crappy math: 3000L = approx 660 CDN Gallons or 792 US Gallons but the dimensions work out to approx 430 US Gallons. A huge tank either way.

Also, 32 X 54W light = 1728 W total or between 2 to 4 W per US Gallon. I thought you needed more light than that to keep SPS but that tank looks amazing. :eek:

Jamie, in this case, a vancouver wholesaler had the pics from their german friend and he asked me to post them. I know nothing about the tank owner at all.

You know, I hated math in school, don't know why I mess with it now.

Looked at the pics again. If the tiles on the back wall are 12" square then the tank is approx 792 US Gallons or 3000L. :biggrin:

Sorry, I'm told it is 15mm, not cm. Good thing...6" is way thick!!

I got my t5's from Desmond at Aquarium Illusuion's in Edmonton.

Godd start for those of us with questions. Since they are thin, I expect they use a different socket? Also do they use a ballast dedicated to those tubes?

Sorry I didn't answer all the questions earlier. They come in their own little fixture which is very slick looking. the ballast is contained in this little fixture the fixture it self is about the size of a t 8 bulb and the t5 bulb is quite brite. the endcaps are basiclly mini versions of the larger size ones.

any other questions?

Got any links to sites with specs?

Sorry I don't :confused:
Maybe Des will pipe in here? He is not on here much though

I may be wrong about this, but I believe the Germans are somewhat ahead of us lin lighting technology. At least in how it applies to reef keeping. I suspect thet the new T5 bulbs provide as much light as the electricity sucking MH bulbs we tend to use. Certainly with different phosphors it is possible to create any spectrum lighting you want. :eek:

This actinic t5 I have is a little diffrent blue then my zoomed actinic bulb's are. The zoomed's seems to have a pinky tone to then compared to the t5 which is like a compact flourescent blue color.

I wonder how much deep discussion on the merits of different blues we could get into. :rolleyes:

I recently bought some half blue 13W bulbs from AHsupply. The blue is different than the bulb I bought from Jach Chu..

I suppose there would be any amount of different shades of blue as you go deeper into the ocean, as more of the other wavelengths get filtered out. Then when you get deep- enough it becomes black. :sleeping:

Found some info about T5 units here:

http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.u...?article_id=75

This link does not work for me.

Link works for me Bob, maybe you have to wait a few more seconds.
Good article.

:biggrin:

T 5`s
 

Does anybody know of the cost and availability of these bulbs. Thanks

Incredible stuff!

A few years back I went to Hamburg and also to the Berlin Aquarium, I had totally forgotten about the banana thing until now!

One of there marine bio's told me that they also fed banana's to there open air natural 1000gl tank as well.

I wonder if my fish would like a banana split from DQ as there on sale right now :wink:

I only wonder about pollution :question:

Will try to post a pic of that tank if I can dig it up from the archives :mrgreen: cheers, Rich

Just a couple notes I feel should be added here.

1, exelent info link but it does show that compard against MH lighting to acheive the same amoun t of light T5's will cost more to buy and will cost more to run. So there is no cost benifit when compard to MH.

2, the T5's that are being hyped are not the same T5's you can buy in a hardware store, but rather a HO version of the T5. I think a standard T5 for a 48" bulb is rated at 28 watts, but the HO T5 that the aquarium industry is trying to push now is a 54 watt or higher tube. same idea as NO T12 and VHO T12.

I have looked into the T5 stuff and as it sits right now you can get the tubes and such from some lighting places but they are not easy to get or cheep enuf throught comercial lighting suppliers at this time to make it worth the trouble as they are not ordering a large enuf amount to get the good price breaks.

I am thinking about bringing in a couple to try on the bottom tank as the PC's on there will need to be replaced pretty soon. This way I will be able to do some testing on the PAR output of them against other types of lighting.

Steve

Here is some info I found out.
The 24" 6500k t5 bulb and fixture is 14w and puts out 1375 lumens.

I saw some t5's at Pisces, they seemed to be priced reasonably but you could not just buy bulbs you had to purchase the set up which had 1 6500k and 1 actinic. Not sure what the wattage of the bulbs was, they had a 4 foot for 55.99 and 2 footer for 32.99. Hope that might help someone out.

Have a great evening everyone,
Kelly

Hi,

was reading this thread and while browsing the web came across this website that sells the t5 HO lamps. http://www.sunlightsupply.com Don't know if they sell to the general public or if they ship to Canada

There might be some cost advantage to T5's if they actually last 2 or 3 years.

The first link you posted showed a 20% drop off after 2 years, that seams consistant with other floressent tubes, like VHO and PC.

so if we are changing out VHO actinics after 1 year I would suspect you will be changing out the T5 actinics after 1 year. The article you posted claims 18 months, so I am guessing that is what they are basing there cost figures on.

what I would like to see is some direct comparisons against VHO bulbs as the T5's will not be suitable for deeper tanks that have SPS at various levels (acording to the manuafactuer).

Steve

.

Sure, but it also true that some people keep only shallow tanks, and do not think you need SPS corals to have a reef tank. :rolleyes:

i believe the point was made, to give us an idea of how strong these bulbs are compared to MH bulbs...basically saying they may not be able to replace the role of MH lighting in the hobby. :rolleyes:
after all, the hype surrounding these T5, is that they may be the "new" reef lighting trend.
and no, MH are not strictly for sps tanks.
so, sure it may be a viable option for you shallow tank keepers, but for others who need stronger lighting, (for sps or not) it just may not cut it.

from what i have read, it doesnt look like T5 is going to be "the" lighting option for everyone to strive for...

from the german tank info...
on an ~12' tank,
would compare to 16 x T5, on a 6' tank, which would mean 864Watts.
kind of what i run now, with a mixed tank as well, but, only difference with me, is that i am able to keep high light corals on the sandbed, but then again, my tank is not as deep as the german one. so this isnt really the best comparison...oh wait, Brads tank is deeper than mine and he is able to keep high light corals near/on the botom as well.

also...from the link provided...
it does look like they are recommending a watt per watt comparison as well.

i guess we will just have to wait until someone has used them long enough to give some realworld observations.

I would not get hooked on that figure. That number is for the everyday T12 tubes. T5s , and Power Compacts have a much greater Lumens per watt output.

Funny, I read that over and I do not recall saying that the only type of reef tank that people have is a deep and has SPS.

What I did say and will say again is that "the T5's will not be suitable for deeper tanks that have SPS at various levels"

and of course if you can read between the lines by saying this I also infer that it will be fine for (some)shallow tanks, mixed tanks, softy tanks, and LPS tank. I say some because you can have a shallow tank with extreamly high light requirments.. or there are some softies that do better with MH and there are LPS that do much better with MH (as I have seen on my tank when I switched from PC to MH.

Have a good day
Steve

I did not want to make any accusations, but perhaps it sounded like I did. I only wanted to make sure that those of us who do not have any SPS corals did not need to feel like second class citizens. It just seems that when reading some posts there is an inference that if it is not good for SPS, it is no good period. That is sometimes the feeling I get when reading posts.. It is probably not intended as such, but can easily be interpreted that way.
:redface:

I would never say that LPS and softy tanks are "second class" I do have two big LPS and several mushrooms and some zoooooooooosss :mrgreen:

heck my tank has just as much "others" as it dies SPS so if you are second class, I am the one that the SPS class doesent want to tell there family about :wink:

Steve

Of topic question do you know the difference between VHO and T-5 bulbs? or are they just a varyation of VHO's?

T5's are just a different size of tube. a VHO is a T12 so it is 1.5" diameter.. a T10 is 1.25" and a T8 is 1" so a T5 is 5/8" diameter. and PC is a T4 base. what they have found is that if you pump the same power into a smaller diameter tube you get a more intense light.

so basicly both a T5 and a T12 are normal floressent tubes, a VHO T12 is designed to handle more power than a standard T12. and the same holds true for T5's.. there are HO (high output) and NO (normal output)

Steve