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Originally Posted by lastlight
Does the glass shield cover the entire bottom? In pics it looks like it only covers the ends of the tubes...
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That picture is misleading as the unit came with a 2 piece glass shield that covers the entire bottom of the fixture.
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Originally Posted by lastlight
That pic clearly shows single reflectors as well. Is yours not like this? Perhaps the Sfiligoi site shows the new ones with LEDs and they changed something...
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The unit shown must be an older model or the unreleased stealths with moonlights coming out next year as the reflectors in mine are much wider but are not "true" indivudual reflectors. If you look at this picture, you can actually see through the end of the unit and see the shape of reflectors as outlined in red.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lastlight
Love the look that bulb combo gives you!
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I'm fairly happy with the colour generated by the bulb combo. I may have to tinker with it a bit and replace the Sfiligoi pure actinic with another Aquascience 22K as I wouldn't mind a bit bluer tint. I'll wait until these bulbs burn in and after a week or two see how it looks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lastlight
You chose not to mount into joists?
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I was actually unable to mount the light into the joists in the ceiling as they ran parallel to the tank and I would not have been able to center the fixture correctly if I had mounted into the joists. If the joist had run perpendicular to the tank that would have worked out great as the distance between joists wouldn't have mattered at all. Sfiligoi has a slick system where the hanging cables are mounted into a track on the top of the fixture and are able to slide back and forth to accomodate where the joists would line up.
Since this wasn't an option, I picked up a pack of 3/16" drywall toggle bolts that had 2.5" long toggles. Apparenlty, each one is supposed to be able to support up to 50 lbs (if drywall is 1/2" thick) so I think I'm pretty safe seeing as the fixture weights probably 25 lbs tops. Here is a pic of how the mounts look on the roof.
As for why I chose T5s over a new metal halide fixture, I had several reasons. I've seen so many beautiful tanks on the zeovit forums that have been kept soley under T5 lights and after seeing a local hobbyist's tank lit by a SLS 8 x 54 Watt Tek, I was amazed at the intensity and colour of the light given off by the fixture. Often times we had ordered the same frags on group orders and the SLS T5 fixture would have the frags coloured up much faster than my metal halide setup.
It also seems that there are so many more bulb choices and combinations with T5's as well. You can really mix and match to get your tank looking anywhere from a 10K to 22K spectrum depending on personal taste. I might have to swap out a bulb or two in my tank as right now it looks a little too white for my liking.
Electricity savings should also be signficant over my previous setup. The Sfiligoi stealth draws 432 watts as opposed to my old setup which was a 2 x 250 watt PFO HQI ballast running SE radium 20k bulbs + 2 x 54 watt actinic T5s. I always knew the bulbs were being overdriven on that ballast but I was amazed when someon on RC posted the actual wattage being drawn by the same setup as mine was ~809 watts when its was just over 500 watts when DE bulbs were used on the same ballast.
As such, I was having some heat related issues with my tank, especially in the summer. With the new Sfiligoi fixture, I'm hoping to avoid these problems and I've also been able to eliminate the 2 7" fans that I had blowing across the surface of my tank for 12 hours a day. This should then cut down on the amount of top off water going into the tank daily as well.
I know that I'm going to really miss the shimmer of the metal halides but since I've only got about 3" of sandbed behind the front pane of glass, I didn't really get the fully shimmer effect anyways.
Since I'm planning on upgrading to a much larger tank as soon as I find a house, purchasing this light will also give me a "trial run" of T5's on an SPS dominated reef so that I can more effectively decide on what lighting to use on my next tank. If this sfiligoi fixture can generate more intense colouration in my corals and keep coral growth rate similar to my previous setup, I will likely go with an all T5 setup again. This will then help me decide on what size tank to go with as I'd likey get a 60" tank and use T5s as opposed to getting a 72" tank if I were to use metal halides on the new setup.
Another reason why I decided to make the switch was basically out of curiousity. I've seen many beautiful T5 lit reefs on the net, but have only seen 1 in person. Probably 9 out of 10 SPS reefs are illuminated by metal halides or a combo of metal halides and T5/VHOs. If this fixture is able to keep up with halides and help save some money on electricity while adding less heat to the aquarium, I want to be able to share this information with other hobbyists since there is so little information posted anywhere on Sfiligoi.