Steve, the T5s you saw, did they have individual parabolic reflectors? I have not seen T5 lighting in person yet. But apparantly they are all about the reflector, because of their small size they are unique, a parabolic reflector is supposed to make them kick butt.

you can make good reflectors for any light, this is why the 150w HQI was so good when it came out.

T5, actually have nothing to do with the reflector (all florescent tubes will have the same types of performance gains in similar reflectors) but rather with how many bulbs you can fit over a tank. this will give the illusion of the tank getting brighter with more bulbs but really the intensity is the same, just more even.

Steve

But with PCs, the tubes are not perfectly round, so you cannot build as good of a reflector to uniformly bounce light back with precision.

With VHOs, I think they all have internal reflectors along the top, so that stops you from bouncing the light back really well with a reflector

With T5s, they are round and no internal reflector (I believe) so you can build a reflector that is matched perfectly to them.

actualy they are round, just depending on the set up you might have to treat it as two tubes in a single reflector. for an example I designed the reflector for my old PC set up and I was with in 5% of the output of a 175 watt MH.

the only one I know of with an internal reflector is URI. Might be more now. the internal reflector actualy allows you to get more light into the tank as you are not waisting light trying to come back through the tube so it is a better set up.


not realy true, you can not pass light effectivly back through the bulb so a T5 will have the exact same limitations as any other floressent tube.

Steve

How many watts of PCs did it take to come within 5% of a 175w MH? What reflector was used on the 175w MH for comparison?