Lighting question: How often should they be replaced?
 

Have T5 HO lighting for my 150 gallon tank and wondering if there is a defined timeline they should be replaced in my SPS/LPS fish tank. The (4 foot) 3 Actinic lights are 54w Fiji Purple and the 3 white lites are 54w New Generation. They have been running for about 6 months now.

Any advise is appreciated.

i change my white bulbs every 6 months, but you can still get decent performance out of them up to 10 months if you have them fan cooled. I find that i can notice a difference in the intensity of the light at 6 months by eye so thats why i change mine at 6. actinics i change when they burn out, they give off little usable light, if any, for the corals anyways.

Depends on your fixture.....if its actively cooled (meaning fans in the proper places), then probably up to a year....if its not an actively cooled fixture then 6-9 months, depending on use of course. Side note: fiji purps look great but give off alot of the red color spectrum, which tend to help feed algae growth.

I change my T5s around 9 months. They aren't fan-cooled.

A lot of the 'blue' bulbs now actually have a fair amount of PAR.

Your could always use a PAR meter to track the output of the bulbs, but I suppose that wouldn't catch any spectrum shift.

The recommendation seems to be around the 9 - 10 month range. 6 if you're made of light bulb money.

I waited about 14 months before changing out my bulbs.

I didnt realize how dull they had become until finally changed them. All of the corals seem to be doing much better now. I'll probably do as others have suggested and will change the white bulbs every 9-10 months and will keep the actinics for 15 months or longer.

On a somewhat related note, what is everyone doing with their old T5's. Are there any places that we can take them for recycling?

I wonder what ever happened to the 18 months T-5,s were suppose to give us. :lol:

ya really 18 months ROLMAO on my TEK system remember Doug i lost color on about the 6-8 month

Same here - I just replaced my bulbs yesterday, and I had forgotten what "crisp white" light was....I was used to dull yellow...