Considering switching to MH

[kien]

There are lots of great T5 tanks out there. Doug and Johns tank just to name a couple. They seem to be doing very well with T5s so I dunno. I'm actually going to try T5s over my shallow 104.72g tank because I'm a little curious too. I have never run T5s exclusivly before. My main 150 tank is a combo fixture 3x250 halides with T5s supplementing. I don't have any complaints about it. It is fairly high over my tank so no huge heat issues. I do love the halide shimmer though and would totally miss that. That alone is probably the only thing keeping halides over my tank :-)

[lorenz0]

Its up in the air. I am getting a qoute on a set up today so it all matters on how much it will cost. So far Changing the skimmer showed huge improvement in my tank, and i really want to stay out of KZ products.

[banditpowdercoat]

I started with T5's and although I still like the color choices you get, and cooler temps. I don't think I could give up my MH's now. They add a shimmer, make the tank seem more alive it seems. WHat I want to do is Add T5's, or some blue LED's to the MH's.

[doch]

I had MH on my last tank, and ended up cooking it when I was out of town during a hot spell. Came back and all my corals were melted, and most fish and inverts were dead. I'm sticking with T5's... to be safe. From people that I've talked to, and setups that I've seen, you can grow pretty much anything under the right t5 set up anyways, so why pay the extra power and worry about the extra heat???

[blueyota]

I have MH on my tank and love it I did try t5 but cant get the bright color with just t5 imo i do have t5 supplement with my MH to give more color pop
but like stated in previous posts the shimmer alone is worth it

[lorenz0]

thanks for the input guys. my biggest concern is heat in the summer as a chiller is a bit out of the budget. could running fans across the surface reduce heat from the lamps enought that i won't have to be worried about cooking my tank?

[ponokareefer]

Originally Posted by lorenz0

thanks for the input guys. my biggest concern is heat in the summer as a chiller is a bit out of the budget. could running fans across the surface reduce heat from the lamps enought that i won't have to be worried about cooking my tank?

Fans will help, but with 2 250 MH's, you'll need some good fans, and you'll likely hear them, and then you will also have a fair amount of evaporation, so will likely need an ATO to maintain good balance. I just went to an ATO this summer because of this.
So, you'd have the expense of the MH fixture, plus a chiller, or fans and an ATO. You could get a pretty nice 8 bulb T5 for that.

[kien]

Originally Posted by lorenz0

thanks for the input guys. my biggest concern is heat in the summer as a chiller is a bit out of the budget. could running fans across the surface reduce heat from the lamps enought that i won't have to be worried about cooking my tank?

A fan will definitely help. I used to use a cheap $10 floor fan from Canadian tire and that kept my temp from going above 81. It was noisy as hell though. Ended up getting a sleek 4 fan unit that is pretty quiet. It plugs intou controller so it actually isn't on all the time. Controllers for the win here! When temp drops below 78 heater kicks in fan is off. When temp hits 81 fan kicks in. When temp is in a comfortable range neither fan nor heaters are on, so the temp in my tank never drops below 78 and never rises above 81 ever. I have 3 250watt halides :-)

[ponokareefer]

I have MH over my 125 gallon, and if I had to do it all over again, I'd get a nice T5 fixture instead. The multitude of light combinations, and the lack of heat issues are 2 major items that swing my vote for T5's. I know the shimmer is "nice", but I have seen too many amazing T5 setups that I wouldn't think twice about it if I had to do it all over again. You can get a nice effect by placing a powerhead close to the surface creating waves and ripples in the water giving you a nice effect, even with T5's. I do this even with my MH's.

[banditpowdercoat]

I just have a clip on desk fan on top of tank, that comes on when lights on, and off an hr after lights out. Keeps my tank pretty stable, maybe up to 82 MAX in summer. I'm also in a mobile home, so it gets pretty warm in there at times.

PS, I got 3 250W 2 DE and one SE