[fishytime]

Originally Posted by Myka

Ah but Doug, you use T5s as your only source for light. Of course you want PAR out of them. If your primary light source is MH you don't need high PAR from the T5s.

As far as Fiji Purples go, I do agree they have a lot of red spectrum, but something about them really makes the color pop on corals. If I have a T5 only fixture like yours Doug, I would only use one strip of Fiji Purple, but if you have MH with one or two T5s on each side, they have to be the same on one side as they are on the other or you will get different shades in the front of the tank as the back. That doesn't bother some people, but it drives me nuts. That's the only reason I would suggest more than one strip of Fiji Purple.

I have bulbs that have 18 months of use on them and their color spectrum hasn't faded as much as the AquaScience 17,500K with 6 months on them. One of these bulbs is a Hagen 18000K.

I'm also not a fan of Giesemann T5s in most situations!

Well in my eyes, if Im gonna use energy to drive bulbs, the light they produce might as well be useful...even if I were running MHs with T5s I would choose a T5 bulb that actually has some sort of benefit besides just color....I will be the first to agree that Fiji purps look great, but most peoples systems simply dont handle the red spectrum to well....Ive tried almost every bulb available to me at the shop, KZ, Giesemann, Aquascience, aquamedic, even ran the hagens when I first started( decent looking bulb btw)....I will continue to push and use the AS bulbs because the proof is in the puddin