Removing glass cover from your tank would be a good idea just for proper gas exchange; someone just lost all the fish not too long ago on here (Alfredshouse?) because of lack of O2. Our tanks are not perfectly designed for proper gas exchange anyway.
Ideally tank height needs to be equal to its width, or greater like a lake or an ocean, but this is the case only with cubes, so we all need some help with gas exchange.

Re T5, I don’t use any cover and my 6 lamps Tek fixture is on the legs at the lowest setting which is about 6” or lower from water surface just above the splash level

Does it effect Temp in your tank?

Didn't notice a temp difference in my tank

The problem with removing the glass cover is that you're going to expose your T5 reflectors to salt spray and humidity which will lead to pitting of the reflectors and eventually diminish light output.

Then the other problem you have is that if you choose to protect the reflectors by putting the acrylic shield on the fixture you're going to trap heat in the fixture around the lamps causing them to burn out faster and lower the PAR produced. Ideal T5 output occurs when the cold spot on the lamp (the end where the label is on the lamp) is kept at a temperature around 115-120 F. And this is not simply accomplished by blasting the lamps with a fan because the air should be directed at the cold spot on the lamp. The concern regarding overheating the lamp when leaving the acrylic shield in place is negated when you have a fixture with active cooling. And again, this is why it is prudent to purchase a quality T5 fixture - you save on lamp replacement costs in the long run and you get better output.

One of the trends I've noticed in this thread is that the majority of posters are relatively new to the hobby. I think what unfortunately happens is that new hobbyists read that T5s are great and see people keeping higher demanding corals with them. So they've done part of the research when it comes to making a lighting decision but they unfortunately miss part of the story - the important part where lower quality fixtures produce significantly less light output and the importance of things like high quality individual reflectors, active cooling over the cold spot, and appropriate lamp shielding among other factors such as quality of ballasts.

Hey, I had all these questions I was going to ask you when you came by.
I have my reef at 80F. I will watch it closely, how far is your light above the water level.
Do you have the acrylic cover on yours?
Thank-you, Banditpowdercoat,
This is fun right!?#*

No wonder so many give up, just when I thought I had an answer........My light is crap
make that both are. When I stop crying I will hit post quick reply, nope i will jump the gun.

Ya Leah, I'm second guessing my choice in light fixture now too. Well, originally I never wanted to keep SPS. Now I have a Clam, and am thinking maybe a birdsnest woult look good there, a Acro there........ I keep my yank at 77-78. heater comes on in winter, but never in summer. I have a A/C unit in the living room that helps. I will be needing a larger A/C unit when I get the new tank tho.

So, I'm thinking, I need 4 new bulbs now, and the TEK light isnt active cooled. I may just try a 250W MH light from www.fishneedit.com I know they are not best quality, but for the price, I can sure try. I have allways loved the MH shimmer.

Leah,

The Tek light isn't crap per se. It's just that a lot of hobbyists seem to see the recommendations regarding using T5s and then go out and buy something like the Tek fixture thinking they're getting a good T5 fixture. Unfortunately, they're missing most of the critical design components of a good T5 fixture. And as I've stated previously the initial savings of buying a cheaper Tek are eventually obliterated when your lamp replacement is sped up, and your output is diminished so you have to run more lamps to achieve the same output produced by a higher quality fixture.

With that said, I ran a Tek light temporarily on my SPS dedicated tank for about 7 months and it kept things alive but they certainly grew slower. Something like a Tek light would be fine for a soft coral or LPS tank and obviously will work with SPS - it's just not even close to the best option for an SPS tank. And users need to understand that while they're "using T5s" there's a HUGE difference when you're comparing output and efficiency from fixture to fixture.

The most cost effective lighting solution is still MH in my opinion. The up front costs and lamp replacement costs on a quality T5 fixture make them a nice toy with which you can more readily manipulate color. However, there are other down sides to T5s for lighting an SPS tank such as the dreaded pastel coloration or "chick corals" (Brad loves this look).

I get it. I like what I have in my reef, I am not interested in getting to complicated with
the more light demanding creature's. Love this reference to chick corals thats good I guess that is me too! Thank-you, I can finally expel that breath I took over an hour ago.
Thank-you again Canadian,
Leah

I love the info on Tek's vs higher end models.

I like my Tek and have a great track run with it. I really would like to see some more technical comparisons on the different fixtuers, much like the Sanjay MH bulb tests before I am convinced however.

digital-audiophile,
How is yours set up? How far off the water, covered tank or light itself?

I am using the TEK legs with them set on the lowest level, so they are about 8" max off the surface of the water. My tank is open top and I don't have the shield on the lights. I get a bit of splash but I clean the bulbs and the reflectors weekly to keep the corrosion away.

Thanks!

This is the bulb configuration that I am planning on going with for my Sfiligoi T5 8 bulb 54w. The fixture should be here in about a month.

Front
Blue Plus
Super Actinic
Fiji Purple
Blue Plus
GE 6500K Daylight
Blue Plus
Super Actinic
Blue Plus

Does anyone know where I can get a GE T5 6500 bulb in the lower mainland?

I found that running Super Actinic bulbs in a T5 fixture is a bit futile. Pure actinic bulbs produce very low PAR ratings so the corals don't really benefit from using them. Basically, they are used only to generate a phosfluorescent glow from corals when they are exposed to that particular wavelength of light. If you have the ability to run only the actinic bulbs while no other bulbs are running for a dusk/dawn effect, then I could see them being useful. However, with any other type of bulb running at the same time, the pure actinic bulbs get washed out so that you can't even tell they are on. I've tried running them with Aquascience 22K's, Fiji purples, Kz 14K's, and Aquascience 15K's and all of the above bulbs made it seem like the actinic bulb wasn't even on. If you can't run just the actinics by themselves, I would suggest using 2 differerent bulbs such as the Aquascience 22K's or ATI Blue + bulbs instead. That way you still get the blue spectrum and some phosfluorescence, but you get a moderately high PAR reading as well.

+1

The T5HO actinics are so dim they almost appear to not even be on when other lamps are turned on. The ATI Blue+ and Giesemann Actinic+ (the name is misleading because it's not an actinic) are pretty blue and provide some good fluorescence while also adding to the PAR.

This is how I set up my Tek 6 bulb just to see how it looked,
Actinic +
Aqua blue +
Actinic + Had a midday originally
Aqua blue +
Actinic +
Actinic + I really like the way this looks. This is on my FOWLR

On my 72
I currently have in my 4 bulb,
Midday
Actinic +
Actinic +
Midday, I think I will try putting 1 Aqua blue + in place of 1 midday.
I love the Chick Glow alot.
Will try and get pictures. When the bulbs are switched out. Only really to prove I do
actually own an aquarium. Tee-hee! Ordering extra bulbs just so I can play around to
to see what I like best.
And as long as I do not start second guessing I am ordering them today.
Thanks everyone for your help,
Leah

This was what REALLY sold me on the Pro Color when I was ordering my bulbs. He's actually not using them anymore though. UVL 75/25 or something similar sounding I think...

http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k72/jartanyon/cl.jpg

My bulbs are in transit. Hoping they arrive intact!

Not entirely sure of order (don't know yet how my light's are grouped for dawn/dusk) but thinking of:

Front
ATI Blue Plus
ATI Aquablue
ATI Blue Plus
ATI Pro Color
ATI Blue Plus
GE 6500K Daylight
ATI Blue Plus
ATI Aquablue
ATI Pro Color
ATI Blue Plus
ATI Aquablue
ATI Blue Plus

I'm new to T5 myself so I'm not sure what to really expect.

I ended up ordering from ReefGeek. My bulbs are also 80w and it was proving to be a hassle to source the exact mix of bulbs I wanted locally or semi-locally. They carry this GE bulb as well as many others.

Leah, do you have any pictured of both tanks? to compare the blue levels?

I am starting to get stressed over this LOL. May just go MH

I will try and get pictures could take awhile. Personally I hated my halide it scared the
bejeeber's out of me. Not so sure Coralife is a very good one. probably not. If you come by this way before you need one you are welcome to come have a look. $1400.00
mistake but hey what the heck.

Yea agreed. Those actinics are pretty crappy for intensity. I also like the blue +. SWC blues are similar to the blue + but cant speak for longevity.

If I ran my fixture again, I would likely switch to AquaScience bulbs. Keep looking at a standard 50g, thinking it would be a little more room than the cube and allow me to use my 4ft. 6 bulb fixture, with more than enough light for my sps with it being only 18in. deep.

i actually had them and was not a huge fan. Personally i have liked the KZ's but i still have yet to try the ATI's which will probably be next

I was curious if anyone that had individual parabolic reflectors on their T5HO set up (24W preferably) could post the dimensions of the reflectors (width being most important). Might be doing a retrofit :D

An IceCap reflector for a 24w bulb is approx 19 5/8" long by 2 1/2" wide. Once you put the IceCap endcaps and stand-offs on the total length is about 23 1/2" long.

I like this. Where are you guys getting your ATI bulbs?

What would be the equivalent from URI/UVL?

This is interesting. A T5HO bulb for $7.95USD. Can't be good. :)

39W Genesis T5 6500k

http://www.premiumaquatics.com/Merch...gory_Code=UVT5

You can get ATI lamps in Victoria from Progressive Reef. Here's their online store:

http://progressivereef.com/t5bulbs.php

Thanks.

By the way, could someone tell me whose tank lorenzo attached to his post ? I thought it was his until I read that he doesn't use ATI.

http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k72/jartanyon/cl.jpg

Sam,

The owner of the pictured tank has the username "fijiblue" on RC. He was running 2 x UVL Aqua Suns, 2 x ATI Blue Plus and 2 x ATI Aquablue Spezials and then swapped out the UVL Aqua Suns with 2 X ATI Pro Colors.

You can read and see a little more in this link:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...readid=1332562

Thanks. I wouldn't have found that thread on my own given that the Reef Central Search page only works for me at around midnight. The thread was a bit confusing.

I think I'm going to get 3 UVL Aquasuns and 2 UVL White Actinics for my 5 lamp fixture.

Sam,

That combo would be quite "white" but I guess it depends on your preference for appearance. I also think you'll be missing out on enough blue spectrum that you won't get the kind of fluorescence most people are looking for.

I'd be more inclined to go with something like 3 ATI Blue Plus and 2 ATI Aquablue Spezial

I guess I'll see how that looks and adjust accordingly afterwards. Right now, I can get a good deal on the UVL's so the ATI's will have to wait. I guess the combo that I specified is the equavalent of 4 Aqua Suns and 1 Pure Actinic as the Actinic Whites are 50/50's.

Maybe I could try 2 AquaSuns, 2 Actinic Whites, and one 75/25. One switch will be 2 Aqua Suns and 1 Actinic White and the other switch will be 1 Actic White and one 75/25.


*UPDATE*

I ordered 2 Aquasuns, 1 Actinic White, 1 75.25, and 1 Super Actinic. I'll see how that goes.

grim reefers PAR link

http://tfivetesting.googlepages.com/par

ffg

I don't know about the algae out break Lorenzo, I think that has something more to do with excess nutrients over to much of a blue spectrum. Besides algae grows faster at a lower spectrum (around 6700k) while actinics occupy the 20K spectrum. I'm running the 8 fixture Tek 5 over my frag tank now with 3 actinics, 1 figi and 4 day lights and I love the color it brings out in my corals. The actinics add a "pop" to the florescent corals and I my favorite time to watch them is at dusk/ dawn for that exact purpose.
Levi

Well to me pure actinic's are a waste of a bulb now. after further researching your only gaining looks from them due to their low par output. But i do agree, the really do bring out the colors which is why i wish i could fit a larger fixture (lol 10 bulb with 2 pre actinics). As of now i am leaning more towars running a 50/50 ratio of 14,000k bulbs and 22,000k bulbs. why i like the 22,000k bulbs is they still benifit the corals with a great par reading but at the same time the really bring out the color, just not as good as the pure actinic's. As of today my new set up is:

aquascience blue
KZ fiji purple
KZ coral light new gen
Aquascience blue
KZ coral light new gen
Aquascience blue

I am going to run this for a month or 2 and see how it benifits the tank but i do wish i had 1 more bulb in there... or 2

Par
 

Keep in mind even with 6 bulbs your still getting ALOT of light. I went from the 4 to the 6 to the 8 bulb fixture just because I wanted my neighbors to think I had a hydroponics lab in my basement :lol:. Besides im seeing fantastic growth on my zoas and the color is amazing.
Levi