More fuel for the T5 fire
 

http://zeovit.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12347

Zeo Tank of the quarter.. light only by T5's. :) :)

16x54 watt:eek:, ok i'm convinced, especially after seeing that green milli, i still don't think he gets as much shimmer as you would with halides though

I don't care about the lighting...I'm going to research that skimmer....

Ah, the KZ skimmer. Very sexy!

http://www.korallen-zucht.de/en/shop...ers/index.html

if you thought the bubble king was expensive ... :p

Looks like the ATB conical shaped skimmer..

http://www.atbskimmers.com/index.php?cat=conical

Uh...I think they made a boo boo. I'm sure the tank is lit for 12 hours, not 2. :lol:

I don't see the point in running T5s when you're using that many. For the record, my T5s shimmer, but not as much as MH.

Man do I like those lights! The fixtures look awesome IMO, very slick.

I may get some shimmer out of my TX5, that is until I see a real bright MH light tank, and I realize mine looks like a flashlight with a blue bulb :lol:

I think Albert owned one of those skimmers. Ditched it for a Bubble King :)

You did notice that his tank is 8ft long right? Nothing odd about 2 x 8 bulb fixtures.

T5's have there place, right inbetween MH and PC, 50% more intensity then the same size PC but still far lower than MH. but I think the popularity of them is due to ease and lower heat, as on large tanks it would take several MH.

seeing as 6 or more years ago we had tanks like that using VHO I don't realy find T5 lighting that amazing just a better idea than PC or VHO. I think there is a lot more than the lights causing the color in that tank, bad A$$ skimmer, crazy maintenance, and time to do it all.

Steve

Heh. And the debate rages on. To each his own.

Lighting Setup
2 x ATI power module, 16 x 54 Watt ( 10 x KZ coral light and 6 x KZ fiji purple)

i believe that means 32 x 54w bulbs

^ I thought it meant 16 bulbs...?

Actually at quick glance I thought it was 10 ft. :lol: The way I figure it is this:

16 x 54w = 864w
Change 16 bulbs every 8 months = ($30 x 16) x 1.3 = $624 per year

Or

250w metal halide x 3 = 750w
4 x 54w = 216w (for actinics) = total of 966w
Change 4 bulbs every 8 months = ($30 x 4) x 1.3 = $156 per year
Change 3 bulbs every 12 months = $140 x 3 = $420 per year Total of $576 per year

Hmmm, more watts of power, higher PAR, and cheaper to run the MH.

Photoperiod
10 am to 12 pm

10 fingers and 4 toes = 14 hours

That is a long time to keep lights on.
Kevin

By the looks of it, buddy boy wasn't too concerned with pinching pennies. I'm sure he found what he liked most and said, "I'll take two."

Hmmmm...

Don't get me wrong, I like T5's ... but they are a tool to achieve an end, not a end in themselves. So why bother even debate about what's better? You might as well debate whether an apple is better or an orange is better. The bottom line is an apple is better to make apple juice and an orange is better to make orange juice.

I think Myka hit the nail right on the head. T5's are great, but they aren't "really madly truly" an economical alternative to halides. The lamps are cheaper but you have more of them and you need to replace them more often. I doubt that you really even get substantially less heat overall (it might be better directed though).

To me the choice for lighting should be about the size and shape of the area you wish to cover, and basically what floats your boat better.

I like both halides and T5's. I have tanks with both. :p I wouldn't say one really has an edge out over the other. I like the slimline low profile the T5 fixture I use has, but I don't like that in 3 months of use that I can perceive that the lights are already dimmer. I like how my halides last 12 to 18 months before I perceive a shift, but I don't like that I have to spend $80 to $120 to replace them when I DO have to replace them.

So in short, I think T5's both rule and suck, and I think halides both rule and suck.

:p

Oh and ... wow, what a wicked tank BTW. (Just noticed I forgot to mention that :redface:) DARRRROOOOOOOOOL. :)

I just can't figure out why the T5 fanatics see a amazing tank that has a million bucks worth of equipment and automatically assume it is the T5's that are responsible for everything on the tank :mrgreen:

Steve

Of course it's not just the T5's :p But for colour, I really think they have an edge of MH.

I've used 150MH , 250MH and now T5's myself and I must say I prefer the latter, but as mentioned it really is a matter of choice.

Bahahaha!!! Wow...excellent mathematical skills on my part! 12 pm is noon though. 12 am is midnight. I'm sure that the article means his lights are on from 10 am to midnight...which yes, would be 14 hours, not 12. :lol:

You NEED metal halide. I'm just sayin'.....

LOL!! Brad, you are the reason I posted this. :lol: ... what took you so long? :mrgreen:

I wanted to share the fun, but nothing good was coming up, so I thought I needed to straighten out the confusion. :)
I just remember snorkelling through the reefs and recalling that a real reef looks like it's lit by MH, not T5, so therefore to get an accurate representation of a real reef, you need MH. I looked at a tank last night lit with T5s, nice and bright with great colors, but something was just missing. I guess it's sort of the "snap" you get with a more direct light source. And you can tan under MH too, just like on a real reef.

That's the reason I went with MHs on my present tank. Plenty of light with T5s, but they don't have the "natural look" (well that and my wife told me to :redface: ) I still miss all the good things about T5s though. Shadowing and glitter lines are the only thing MHs add to a system IMO.

[quote=Reefer Rob;314642] I still miss all the good things about T5s though. QUOTE]

I guess I still fail to understand what these good things are.....

1.) Slim unit design and weight (not as big an ugly as Mh units)
2.) Multiple bulbs allow individual selection to fine tune your colour preference & par (as opposed to only ~4-5 realstic bulb selections/colours available with MH)
3.) Less energy consumption
4.) Less heat (even after 10 hours on I can put my hand on the unit vs. MH of which I still have a nasty scar on my arm from a fraction of a second contact with a fixture)
5.) Less bulb replcement cost (up to debate)
6.) Even light in all corners of the tank, no shadows or MH "spolight" effect


Just a few points that sold me.

set up a combo
 

T5 for the power and all of gregs other points, and maybe a small 70 watt halide for the shimmer. Best of both worlds, and hey, then everyone is on your team ( halide guys and t5 guys)



Probably not a great time however to mention I am a t5 guy.

Nate

Hmm.
1.) My CL MH unit is slim and lightweight
2.)I've always been able to select a color temp that was to my liking (really, how many combinations do you need)
3.)Have no info on this, but I'm sure any savings are negligible over the TCO (total cost of ownership of tank)
4.) With my enclosed HQI setup, heat is not an issue, I can touch any part of my fixture.
5.) <$200 yr, I'm happy with value for dollar here
6.) depending on fixture, reflector, same thing with MH. although I prefer different areas of exposure for different species placement in tank. I certainly don't have any "spotlight" effect in my tank.

I'm in for #2, #4 and #6, with #4: less heat being the big one. I've noticed with MHs some of my Acros will grow towards the nearest Halide, like a house plant in a window, so #6 would be my second advantage.

I really would like to try this, but I'm not sure how to fit it all over my tank or how the effect would look. Would you still get natural looking shadows? I'd still want at least 600W of T5 plus the halides over my 180.

I use both T5 and MH (as well as VHO actinics and LED moonlights for good measure). It shouldn't be an "either/or" choice.

^--- This is all that there is to say. For me they work very well on each side of my MH's. :mrgreen:

you know, I ran into some one to day and he said I was holding back to much on this discussion :twised:

SO.... T5s are good for supplementation only on a real reef tank. there I said it. I did get a chance to compare the light out put of T5's against MH, and PC's and I have to say while impressed against the PC's I was totally let down with there performance against the MH, I thought they would do better than 20%.

as for the debate there isn't one. if you want real color not dim, flat, dingy looking you need a better light source like MH. there are more options with MH for color, better coverage from 1 bulb and way more intense lighting.

If you take a tank that has 3 MH bulbs that is 6 foot long, you will need a fixture that has 16, 36" bulbs to cover the entire tank unless they now make a 6 foot bulb. T5's are changed what every 6 months compared to MH once a year, so you are looking at 36 bulbs at say 20.00 each so 720.00 even once a year change out would be 360, as apposed to the MH 300.00 so now look at power, a 36" bulb is around 35watts so that is 560 watts, compared to the MH of 750, so a little better (we'll assume they are both electronic ballast so extra is not important) but at 5.6 or 6cents a KW/H were talking under 50.00 a year difference. so bulb cost still higher for T5's by a long shot if you follow recommendations.

now heat.. lets compare fixtures to fixtures, you can look at Brads twin 150 fixture and I would be surprised if it is going to add much heat at all, but my T5 fixture on my fresh water tank is damn hot and raised my tank by 3 degrees when it is on. so I say this is a non point also. what I would like to do though is take the PC's out of Brads fixture and replace if with T5's because I hate PC actinic and you can't fit VHO's in there:mrgreen:

Now, why is it every time there is a tank out there that has some color everyone on the T5 bandwagon has to credit the T5's with all the success. I look at that tank and it looks fake to me, dark, dingy, and flat.. no life.

Lighting is just one part of the equation, look at water chemistry, type of lights, color of lights (were there any non actinic shots of that tank? no cuz the colors wouldn't be fluorescing due to the wave length of light hitting the coral, and yes some pigments in corals will fluoresce a different color than they look in day light depending on the light wave that is hitting them. finding that light wave is the critical part. take one of the corals out of the tank and into the sun, do you think it will look the same? I am almost willing to bet (except I am to poor) that it wont.

also let us not forget about nutrients in the water, water chemistry its self, and so on and so on. the more money you have the more equipment you can get to ensure these are perfect resulting in nicer corals.

here is an example, this picture (excuse the algae was having problems at the time) was taken under 10K bulbs with the actinic off. in the first one the pink on the milli is pink, even out of the tank as I saw when I moved it
http://www.members.shaw.ca/stircrazy/top/pink_milli.jpg

In this one there are several different colors, the purple is purple, the green is emerald, and if you look at the green digitata in the right top corner to the left of it is a purple digitata that is a deep deep purple where just below the green and partially under the big milli (about 16" across to give a size reference) is the same purple digitata that looks more lavender. this is the difference intense light makes, as the deep purple one is partially shaded and not directly under the light, but surprisingly the color is what you guys keep loving about T5's and the kind of color I see in that tank you posted.

http://www.members.shaw.ca/stircrazy...green_mili.jpg


so what am I trying to say... Quite trying to start debated on something there is nothing to debate.

Steve

My.... that was long winded. You really need to try reef a tank with T5s. Most of us that actually have really quite like them.

... Sounds like there is a lot to debate ;)

You NEED MH.....how come nobody listens to me?? :)

Umm. Because you're wrong? ;)

Ah. That explains it!

MH acutally uses less electrical power to generate the same amount of light, they have the highest efficiency of any light source except sodium lamps but they are useless for us.
how many watts total of T5 do you use, how many watts total MH would you use to get the same lighting, from what i have seen you need more T5 watts to equal the same lighting as a MH setup.
I build and design underwater lights at work and we use MH exclusivly as they generate way more light than the equivilant T5's we tried, T5 dont have enough raw power to light a large amount of water, they do seem to be bright but only from up close, The MH lights are visible for miles underwater, while the T5 were maybe 100ft untill they dissapeared, both were tested in the same conditions...
top it off that i love the MH shimmer effect and to me that is the trump card.

T5's
 

I'm too old and wise to argue about what's better,and as everything in this world,to each there own.I went all T5's about 2 yrs ago.I'm sticking with what i like,i have no regrets,mix of softies,lps and sps.And everything looks GREAT..:) but it's just my 2 cents.....