24" depth, who runs t5, who runs MH?
 

I have recently bought a bunch of used systems in order to economically and expeditiously establish my 90 gallon tank.

I currently have 2 250W Phoenix 14k running over this tank and I have no complaints, however, I find the diversity in t5 bulbs intriguing and since my tank is host to many sps and a few clams; I thought I would query this great forum for peoples experience with a tank of this depth and t5 vs mh for sps, clams and other high light loving organisms...

Do you really get the same penetration and par with something like a 6 bulb tek fixture (this is the fixture I would try to find if I did switch to t5) or something comparable?

I know there is more to it than optics, but to me, I just can't see how something as bright as a mh bulb could compare to even 6 bulbs of something that is nowhere near as bright to the naked eye...


Thoughts?

links to this same question being asked by other curious newbs?

Pictures?

all appreciated, thank you.

To answer the question very simply...ABSOLUTELY NOT.

This question has been debated to death. You will have the T5 diehards, and the MH diehards who will have differing opinions, and usually strong opinions at that. I used to be a diehard MH, then I switched to T5 and thought that was the cat's @$$, now I'm back to MH.

Depth penetration is a fairly straight forward answer even though you will get differing opinons which is kinda silly if you ask me, as there are numerous "case studies" that show T5 does not even come close to the depth penetration of MH when compared fairly.

Now, when people are comparing MH to T5 for PAR they USUALLY don't compare fairly as it is difficult to do. First, you need 8x54w T5s to fairly compare to 2x[any watt] MH lamps or 4x54w to a single MH lamp. Otherwise you are not getting the same coverage of sq ft of usable light. Next, you have to compare the same Kelvin. You can't compare 10000K to 14000K and say that you have compared fairly because the higher Kelvin puts out less PAR in comparison to the same bulb in a lower Kelvin. Then you have issues like reflector quality. And the biggest variable?? What bulb/ballast combination? If you pick a poor bulb/ballast combination you may get 1/4 of the PAR out of that setup as you would if you ran a different bulb/ballast combination of the same wattage. You can also get more PAR out of a lower watt than a higher watt just by choosing different bulbs/ballasts.

SO...if you want to compare fairly, or you want a more accurate answer you need to ask something more like this:

Will I get higher PAR from 2x250w electronic ballasts with Giesemann 13,000K DE bulbs and LumenMax 3 reflectors or a 8x54w Tek T5 running 3 Fiji Purples and 5 AquaScience 15,000K??

The answer to that would be that you would get higher PAR from the MH set up in this particular case. I'm going to take an educated guess and say you will get about 25-30% more PAR out of the MH at 24" depth. Although the PAR at the water's surface would probably be within 10-15% of eachother, with the MH still leading.

Another issue with lighting that many many people fail to consider is water clarity. There are many reasons for higher or lower water clarity, and generally people with less experience are less likely to have high water clarity. This HUGELY affects the amount of light penetration, and is not as easy to achieve as you may think. I'm not going to go into that any more though because that's a fairly large topic as well.

Imo, there is no comparison in your case with the combination of significant depth (24") and the critters you are keeping. MH would be the ONLY option if I was in your place. Oh, and I am!! I am setting up a 24" deep tank, and am using 2x250w MH with supplemental T5 blues/actinics. I absolutely would not consider T5s for my tank, and I only keep LPS, a lower light clam, and a lower light anemone. Although I do plan to add a few SPS to the tank.

Good answer ^

And now from my own experience if you have a tank with low depth like say 18 inches a t5 54w fixture may grow sps however for a deeper depth it will keep stuff alive but not thrive!

I had a 6 bulb tek over my 120g with 2 extra single t5's full sps tank and in 3 months went back to 2x250w hqi. While some sps did well with t5 at the 8in and up mark the rest coloured down, so IMO mh hqi with sps FTW!!!!!

Thanks for the diatribe, I appreciate your comments.

I'm amazed so much info can be received from someone who has a 33 gallon sumpless and skimmerless tank.


I would love to see your set up Myka, do you have any pics?

I have so many pieces of equipment that it's confusing and I was wondering if it were all necessary plus, I am looking to spend 400-500 on an new skimmer that I was under the impression was mandatory. I'd be sincerely interested to know about your maintenance schedule and if you have any problems with algae or organic waste build up etc...

I wonder what difference the usable light makes if my tank is only 18" wide?
wouldn't a 6 bulb fixture give me all the usable light I need where as a MH light might be spilling over the sides as i have read a MH bulb should cover about 2 square feet and thats about 6" too big?

I would love to see a comparison of the best and most advanced MH technology against the best and most advanced T5, regardless of differences in reflectors, ballasts and such, just a bare knuckles brawl between these two top offerings of these mainstays in this hobby.

Also, some links to those case studies you mentioned that set the record straight on t5 vs MH depth penetration would be really helpful, can you post the links to them please?

I apologize for not offering enough specifics on what mh I wanted to compare to what t5s for you to answer my query, I guess i was just hoping for some general info on the two and their individual benefits versus short comings, but maybe thats impossible, I am just a newbie:redface:

if anyone can even add anything after that, I'd still love to hear some discussion...

Ha, i see you have the fixture I am considering for sale....lol
what bulbs were you running tang daddy?
and you say you had 2 extra on there?
so you really had 8 t5's with individual reflectors all in all and were not satisfied?
what are the dimensions of your 120 if you please?
you're comparable experience is precisely what I was hoping to hear

Just putting this out there
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/sho...threadid=51991

Anyway on a serious note, great response Myka, that about sums it up.

I use both MH and T5.
I can honestly say I can keep the same SPS corals on the bottom of my 24 inch deep tank and the color is just as good. IMO dont worry so much on lighting there is much more that influence color in a tank than just lighting.
You can drive yourself crazy there are many tanks on both sides of the debate that are impressive.

canreef is dominated by people who believe that MH is the only way to go. IMO MH is good for growing but color is a whole different story. Still can NOT get the same colors that you can with T5's (edit) unless you run 22k MH but than your losing your growth

Its all up to you really, personally i prefer T5's and will never own MH.... but the temptation has been there to try them out

Myka

holy smokes, I just looked at your photos from yesterday.
That is one nice 33 gallon.

what do you have for fish in there?

did you decide to go skimmerless to have more nutrients since you're predominantly lps?

your fox coral look angelic....

Ha, trying to grow sps under T-5 lighting. Now thats a joke. :wink:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...5&pagenumber=1

I usually dont like linking another forum but some outstanding sps aquariums in this thread. Not sure of the depths without reading it again but some I know for sure are that deep or close to it. :smile:

Great link, I never understand why people are so stuck on their ways on this topic. It has been proven time and time again that T5's can grow great thriving SPS tanks, yet somehow all those pictures of it occurring seem to miss MH users. I guess it took a long time for people to start believing the earth was not square, even after all the ship explorations and date that said it was circular.

As Lorenz0 said "canreef [and many of the other forums are] dominated by people who believe that MH is the only way to go. IMO MH is good for growing but color is a whole different story. Still can NOT get the same colors that you can with T5's (edit) unless you run 22k MH but than your losing your growth

Its all up to you really, personally i prefer T5's and will never own MH.... but the temptation has been there to try them out"

I feel the same way about T5's.

I'm doing the mix as well. The 2x250w MH for the PAR, supplemented with T5s to help with the colours and that dusk/dawn thing. Some comparison pictures here.

Very good answer, the differance in PAR will be a little more at 24" though, more like 50 to 100% more depending on reflectors and such.

only thing I am interject into this is water clarity makes way less differance than people think. unless the water is so cloudy you notice it and have a hazy look to it, you are going to get less than 1% atinuation in a 24" deep tank, once there is a slight haze you get about 1 to 2% and if you can't see the back of the tank clearly then it gets bad. the only reason I know this is when my tank crashed due to a crapy heater I figured I would take something good out of it and did PAR readings at various stages of clarity. Had to get something good out of loosing over 7K replacment value in corals :cry: Also glass tops only make a differance of about 3% for 1/4" glass. acrylic would be less.

Steve

What fails to be mentioned many times when asking a question such as this thread, is the variety of T-5 fixtures.

Notice many of those, {not all mind you}, bulbs in that thread are over driven. Plus some of the fixtures are top end units. Thats a lot of difference when comparing what they will grow and depth penetration.

My 6 bulbs fixture is very good, IMO, but when it was on my 90, I think it may have not been enough for sps corals, except for higher up. But then its half the cost of the other units and with bulbs to boot. :lol: Try explaining that to lowballers when selling a unit like that. Sheez.

Anyways, I would not hesitate to use my unit on a 16in. high tank for sps corals. If I was doing a 24in deep tank and wished to run T-5,s I would use one of the high end fixtures, esp. the models that run the bulbs @ 80w or build my own and use the Icecap do it yourself kits. My friend has a 120g full blown sps tank that and it rivals any halide lit tank I have seen.

In defense of halides though, have a look at some of them in our featured section. Some blow your mind sps tanks there. When I look at my friend Mikes 5ft. tank running his three 250,s both 12K Reeflux and a centered 20k, there is no doubt in my mind thats part of the reason for the nice growth and outstanding colors in all his sps

So this basically says, more than one way to run the tank, just buy the correct product for your own needs.

My tank is 27" deep and I run a mixture of M/H & T5 and really like the combo. 5x 250w 14k, 2x 150w 20k & 12x 54w T5 bulb mix. It's the best of both worlds. Lot's of colour, growth and still get the MH shimmer.:biggrin:

Another point about the MH is: are they HQI or single end moguls because between the two of them there is little comparison IMO. HQI all the way!

ahh, here is another one I can dispell, :mrgreen: it isn't the DE bulb that is better than the SE, b ut rather the HQI ballast that is better. A SE bulb on a HQI Ballast has both more par and coverage than a DE bulb on the same bulb.

Steve

T5 is only adequate for tanks 12" or less in depth. Anything greater than that depth and growth rate for SPS will be less than 1mm per month when using T5s.

Additionally, PAR values measured by meters such as the Apogee Quantum meter measure false high PAR values for actinic fluorescent lamps so the measured T5 PAR values are misreported (over inflated).

My tank is approx 30" deep and I am running T5s (8 tubes) and before this, i had MH lights (750 w). My soft corals and anemones are responding just fine to my T5s and I don't have to worry about crazy electricity bills.

I should note that most of my corals are closer to the top (about 2 feet away from light)

So your saying all those in the thread I linked are wrong??

*ding ding ding* and in this corner
:fencing::laser::fish::boxing:

Trying to make a blanket recommendation for the light requirements of all SPS corals is pretty silly. Would a milli and a pavona really react the same to a given light level?

T5 lamps have heavy blue output for a reason, some or maybe most the photopigments in corals respond to light in these wavelengths. Using a PAR meter designed for horticulture may not be the best tool to measure this but it's the best tool we have. However referring to this artifact of PAR measurements as "misreported" completely overlooks the basic requirements of these animals.

Just a question for Andrew. Not meant in any other way. :smile:

great stuff everyone.
That thread on rc was great, some beautiful tanks there that are obviously quite deep and t5 based.

I'm really glad to see the different opinions, I left this thread yesterday afternoon thinking that I must have been daft to consider switching to t5 but now I think I just need to try it for myself and see what the results are.

Whoops. My mistake. I thought this thread was the one where we make blanket bull$hit erroneous statements about lighting and then other members demonstrate poor critical thinking and regurgitate them while they make absolutely asinine comparisons between different lighting modalities.

Come on guys! Look at my signature and see what kind of lighting I have and what kind of system I run. Use your heads! Look at this thread and see what I have said about T5 lighting in the very recent past: http://canreef.com/vbulletin/showthr...t=51194&page=2

Then go read this thread where some serious BS was spewed and several members gobbled it up and regurgitated it without putting on their "thinking caps" http://canreef.com/vbulletin/showthr...t=51164&page=3

Time and again this stupid comparison is made and people puff up their chests about the superiority of MH lighting all the while completely ignoring the multitude of successful large T5 lit SPS tanks. Many of these large T5 lit SPS tanks are at least 24" deep - so there's your evidence. This BB is, unfortunately, sliding down a slippery slope of pouring out some really bad information of late. I also read posts where members denigrate other sites like RC for various reasons. People need to ensure they get a wider range of views on a topic from other sources before they develop such staunch opinions. There are thousands of SPS dedicated tanks running T5s quite successfully, and several of those are at or around 24" - go look it up somewhere else before your impressionable fledgling hobbyist minds are filled full of BS on this BB.

A few of you need to spend a few min in my place when 12 80w bulbs fire up. I'm hoping t prove a few people wrong but like Canadian said thousands have otherwise I'd never have gone t5.

There are so many variables. Like it was said you needtocompare very specific setups.

mods, you can close this thread, I have all the links and opinions I could ask for now to form an educated decision.

thanks very much for all the the strong opinions guys, all very helpful and definitely shows how much of a debate this issue is in this hobby.

I think I am just going to wait till I find a mid to higher end 6-8 bulb t5 fixture and try it out for myself....

My 250x phoenix don't leave much to be desired so no rush, but I'm looking forward to documenting my experiences when I do make the switch.

*high fives the t5 guys/gals*

WOOT!

No way dont close it this is a great debate thread. Leave it open a lot of information to be had, once it starts getting out of hand then lock it down.

Ya, there is no reason to close this, even if the T5 people are wrong...you NEED MH :)

You know, threads like this make me change my mind more than Michael Jackson changes plastic surgeons.......Ohh, that was a bad one HAHAHA


But really, I just bought a used MH for my tank, waiting on bulbs to come in, to replace my T5. But now, I'm thinking of just keeping the T5, adding a fan on the ends. the tank is like 18" water depth. I'm gona try the MH, but thing they will be reserved for the new, Taller tank I'm gettin.


But anyways, I love reading the reasons each have for liking thier choice of light. No one light is PERFECT. Each person want's, has different needs. It is nice to see that BOTH will work fine. Just depends on how picky a reefer is HEHEHE.

LEDs are better than either MH or T5. Sorry couldn't resist :razz:

But seriously, they are the future for lighting in our hobby. Only problem is up front cost. I am looking at eventually building my own array for my new 65 gallon and it will probably cost me $1100 to $1200 in parts. But that will come down over time as the LEDs get cheaper. Long term benefits are lower energy consumption and no bulb changes as the LEDs should last from 8 to 11 years depending on photoperiod. I'll have PAR as good as a 250W MH with no heat transfer to the tank. With more LEDS and tighter optics you can easily hit 400W MH PAR levels but then the build costs go up too. Final benefit is you can adjust the colour temperature anywhere you want it and the Cree royal blue LEDs generate great Fluorescence in the corals and if you can build and program a controller you can dim them for dawn/dusk or moonlight effects.

insert head spinning smiley here.

LEDs are better than either MH or T5.

LED archaic, go plasma: http://news.cnet.com/1606-2_3-32509.html

Seriously, if you want light, move south and use solatubes! Or a SPS pond :)

Setting up my own Coral reef pool would probably be one of the first things I would do if I liked on the Gulf of Mexico.

speaking of solatubes, here's a link to one of my favorite systems....
uses almost all natural light and is 700 gallons in just the display, this guy actually built his house around his tank and even installed solar panels on his roof to make things a little more economical...
http://forum.marinedepot.com/Topic70159-25-1.aspx

I saw this some time ago. It is intriguing. But will probably be a while before anything is commercially available.

:lol:.. Yea, I was kind of thinking that after. Figured it was the meaning of your post but then one never knows. May have changed your mind. :mrgreen: Then I,m thinking, "did he not just order a top end T-5 unit". Hmmm. :lol:

hey!!! thats my job:mrgreen:

Steve

Ron, have you been to that nano reef tank dot com site, some of the best info I have seen on leds and DIY leds is there, but there are some misconceptions. the first being is that LEDs do creat a whole lot of heat, but it is nopt radiated to the water as you already stated but needs a heat removal system which increases the cost as heat sinks are not cheep. also by saying 250 watt PAR levels or 400 watt PAR levels is not realy true, the largest PAR values I have seen were compared to a DIY probe start ballast SE bulb with no reflector, but to even get close to that one they had to use CREE LEDs (the brightest ones they make) and had to get after market 45degree reflectors and realy tight spacing. not even close to afordable on a large tank as it wasn't afordable on a 10 gal by most people standards. that was also at a fairly close distance, as the LED reflectors seam to have a limited optimization range. I have realy been looking into building an aray, and I have come up with my own ways to save a bit of mony but still for a 28 gal tank I am looking at 48 LED's to get 150wattish levels and 64 LEDs to get what I think would realisticly be 200 wattish levels. so for a price estimate for 64 Cree Leds you are looking at a cost of 1280.00 just for the LEDs, then you need reflectors, which I have see for 5.00 each so another 320.00, now heat sink material.. just a guess at 1 to 200.oo bucks. now you need 1 driver for say every 6 LED's at 32.00 each = 400ish and then misc stuff say 100.00.

so looking at 2300 to get the same or a little less light on a 28 gal as a 250 watt set up with a perfectly seamless coverage and blend of color.

now maybe you have a contact where you can get cree stars for less than 20 each, if so tell me please:mrgreen: but after you get them you still need to know how to do plate soldering (which can be done in a oven if you are carfull) Oh I for got the power supply so you can drive the whole system off 110 but only have low voltage at your drivers for saftey. so another 50 to 100.00

Don't get me wrong, I do think LEDs are the way of the future, but in afordability it is a long way off.

Steve