I am actually planning on purchasing a par meter just to measure everything. Another big thing with t5's is what you are using to cool them. The cooler the bulbs are, the higher output your going to get.
What some people have to remember is there are fixtures out there that do amazing jobs. For instance, Nova extreme pro's. If you change the bulbs with a better bulb you would be suprised with what they can grow. Tek's are great but the down fall to them is that they don't have fan's. If they came with fan's they would be competing with the ATI fixture imo.
For me, i am running aqua science bulbs right now but would like to try out KZ next.
Bulb selection is a huge factor. some people go for looks but will get minium growth and than curse that their sps is not growing when in reality if they changed out a few of your bulbs things can change dramatically.
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