Strictly T5 thread

[Canadian]

Originally Posted by Stones

I found that running Super Actinic bulbs in a T5 fixture is a bit futile. Pure actinic bulbs produce very low PAR ratings so the corals don't really benefit from using them. Basically, they are used only to generate a phosfluorescent glow from corals when they are exposed to that particular wavelength of light. If you have the ability to run only the actinic bulbs while no other bulbs are running for a dusk/dawn effect, then I could see them being useful. However, with any other type of bulb running at the same time, the pure actinic bulbs get washed out so that you can't even tell they are on. I've tried running them with Aquascience 22K's, Fiji purples, Kz 14K's, and Aquascience 15K's and all of the above bulbs made it seem like the actinic bulb wasn't even on. If you can't run just the actinics by themselves, I would suggest using 2 differerent bulbs such as the Aquascience 22K's or ATI Blue + bulbs instead. That way you still get the blue spectrum and some phosfluorescence, but you get a moderately high PAR reading as well.

+1

The T5HO actinics are so dim they almost appear to not even be on when other lamps are turned on. The ATI Blue+ and Giesemann Actinic+ (the name is misleading because it's not an actinic) are pretty blue and provide some good fluorescence while also adding to the PAR.