Sunlight Suppy Tek Light 8 bulb, 4' HO T5 fixture. REVISITED 6 MONTHS LATER

[fkshiu]

I simply aimed a small fan down the length of my old Teklight providing active cooling. This also provided additional evaporative cooling of the tank itself during summer.

[kwirky]

Originally Posted by fkshiu

I simply aimed a small fan down the length of my old Teklight providing active cooling. This also provided additional evaporative cooling of the tank itself during summer.

I've got that going on, too. a 120cfm fan. But what I meant by active cooling is cooling the bulbs through removing the warm air INSIDE the fixture, like the ATI unit does.

[trilinearmipmap]

I have the same unit with softies LPS sps and BTA's.

I find it works for my simple sps (montipora digitata, montipora capricornis and horn coral) in the top 1/2 of the tank). Montipora digitata frags placed on the bottom of the tank also grow well.

Later this year I will be getting more sps and we will see how things go.

[Beermaster]

So your liking the T5's, have been really pondering the lighting solution for my 90gal, and have been leaning towards the T5's

where did you pick yours up? what brand should i buy, or is there good retro kits out there?

[kwirky]

Originally Posted by Beermaster

So your liking the T5's, have been really pondering the lighting solution for my 90gal, and have been leaning towards the T5's

where did you pick yours up? what brand should i buy, or is there good retro kits out there?

I like my T5's. I think for tanks 24" and shallower, they're just as good as MH's. they work out to about the same cost in the long run, because T5 bulbs should be changed every 6-9 months, and the good bulbs (like the coral light and the fiji purple) bulbs will probably be like $40 each when they come to canada.

I'd look for something that is HO driven, and has individual reflectors for each bulb. The sunlight supply Tek light fixtures (the one I have), and the ATI fixtures are both good, depending on which you can afford. Sunlight supply also sells retro kits that are two bulbs a kit. Those are kinda cool, because then you get much more control over your light timers.

T5's $$ efficiency is the strongest at 4' and longer lengths.

I know Gold's in calgary carries both, and J&L sells the sunlight supply Tek fixtures on their site.

Proline Aquatics (canadian distributer) will be getting the coral light and the fiji purple bulbs in pretty soon (next month or so), and I know Gold's is one of the companies they distribute to.

Overall, I'm quite satisfied with my teklight unit, and I don't regret buying it at all.

[Nate]

I am currently running a 50 % SPS 150 gallon under the 48 inch tek 5 - 8 bulb unit, and I have never had this kind of growth or color out of SPS before.

Everything from harder to keep acros to huge monti caps...everything is doing wonderfully. I would say the most difficulty I have had with the unit is leaving a spot on the bottom for things to sit when they first go in the tank, as if you start them on the top, they tend to bleach out a bit.

Some notes:

Tank if 48 x 30 w x 24 t
Bulb variety is from pretty much every company, including experimenting with 2700 k bulbs.

I can honestly say that you should have no problem with SPS with this unit.

As for heat, sure it doesnt have fans, but they are an easy adddition...

I would give the unit a 5 out of 5

PM me for questions

[kwirky]

Originally Posted by Nate

would say the most difficulty I have had with the unit is leaving a spot on the bottom for things to sit when they first go in the tank, as if you start them on the top, they tend to bleach out a bit.

when I add frags, I readjust mine slowly using window screen on top of egg crate. I just remove a layer every couple days over the course of 1 or 2 weeks. That way it doesn't have to succumb to variances in water flow, if I were to start at the bottom and slowly move it to the top.

I've noticed some of the colour coming back to my open brain frag finally. It browned out when I got it about 2 months ago, and today I noticed it's red coming back. I think the major changes I did was change 30% of my bulbs to actinic (had zero actinics before hand).

I also changed the photoperiod from 13 hours for 4 bulbs, and 12 hours for the other 4, to 12 hours on the actinics and 8 hours on the 10k's. Some colour's returning now to some of the browned out frags from a while ago.

[andresont]

What do you guys think about Tek - 36" HO T5's?
It is 39 Watt not 50W so would you get nice SPS colors from 36" inch long 39Watt unit or woud you go with 250 watt DE MH instead, for 36" long tank?
thx.

[fkshiu]

I used to run a 4x39W Teklight over a 46 bowfront. I only had LPS/softies so it wasn't a big deal to keep those guys growing. I'd go for the 6x39W 3-foot unit for SPS.

[mr_alberta]

How deep is the tank? I run a 4 bulb 36" Teklight on my 36" tank. Love it. Stays cool and is amazingly bright. Some of my softies love it, some of them not so much. My 1 Monti Cap seems to like it as well.