light zones under T5 fixture

[homegrowncichlid]

Hi all, I was wondering if anyone could tell me the usable depth range under T5s. Coral care always state high, medium or low placements, but that usually refers to halogens.
What is considered high medium and low depth under T5s? Would it be safe to say the following?
0-12" high
12-18" medium
18-24" is low depth?


Currently using an Aquactinics TX5 fixture (200W 3x460nm, 1x420nm and 1x10K) on a 24" deep tank.

 

[petraio]

I have a 120 gallon tank with ati bulbs on a ati powermodule ! i keep maxima blue at the bottom has been doing and keeping great colors!! this is changing from 3 250 watts metal halide! also at the botton ia about 10 frags of purple montipora digidata this are light demanding to keep the purple color and they too are keeping and developed more purple color!! i think as long as you get good bulbs in your fixture!!

 

[jerl77]

I have a 120 with 8 bulb fixure and I grow sps and clams on the sand bed

Sent from my DROIDX using Reefs

 

[mbg75]

I have a 75 with a 6 bulb Tek. T5 are strong enough that my favia and chalice are bleaching on the sandbed.

All depends on your bulb choices and reflectors.

Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk

 

[homegrowncichlid]

Ah, thanks. So T5s are enough, but what about bulb quality, how do you rank them? and what is a good brand?

Giesemann UVLs and ATI are expensive and excellent? I use to use these a while back, since everyone talks about them.

Wavepoint is what I'm using now and seem OK, being about $5 bucks cheaper per bulb.

Aquaticlife were terrible, and I had orange and yellow ricordias shrink and die out using when I switched from Giesmanns to these, while the green and blue ones were not affected. It took me about a year to notice it when I looked at an old photo of my tank. I replaced them with Wavepoints and the actinic bulbs physically seemed dimmer then wavepoints when I looked at them side by side. (I kept the spent bulbs as room lighting so I can see the difference.)

I've been using wavepoints for the past year and was wondering if I should switch back to Geismanns, UVL or ATIs. Though at an extra ~$5 per bulb, that's an extra $25-$35 every 10 months for me.

 

[jerl77]

ati are the best jmo go with ati and giesemann mix you will be happy

 

[jerl77]

you get what you pay for buy a 5 dollar bulb get a 5 dollar bulb

 

[homegrowncichlid]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1635266

just found a post reviewing the measured PARs under the actinics compared to other brands. LOS likes Wavepoints and found some high PAR readings. Guess that's that.

 

[jerl77]

you can go with wavepoint but you will change them the color temp are not right with them jmo

 

[scampi1]

Hi guys,
3 yrs new to this. I run a 6 bulb ATI fixture over a 58 gallon tank 21" deep. I have always used ati bulbs and never had luck with SPS. Always slowly died. All my levels are good as well as husbandry. Frustrated to the point of getting out of hobby. A fellow reefers helped me out with my issue. I was not running enough bulbs in the 6500-10000 k range. I started running 4-5 of these bulbs with only 1blue plus then added a blue reef brite for more blue and things have taken off dramatically. Unbelievable. Polyp extension is great and everything is thriving. My bulb combos were always recommended by companies where I bought the bulbs. PAR is one important piece but so is Kelvin scale. This is where growth comes from. Blue and purple bulbs are more for disk dawn and aesthetics. JMHO.

 

[Jbanks]

I too run an ATI fixture.. I don't run any tubes in the 6500 to 10000k range and my tank has been fine.... what I will say in terms of kelvin is that growth under high Kelvin lights will not be as fast as with low kelvin bulbs (this has been evident in my tank) . However, as long as they have a strong par rating, the corals should be fine. Here is my tank... it is a mixture of mostly ATI Blue +, 1 ATI Purple Plus and a few ATI AB Specials...
The tank will be 3yrs old in June 2012. Notice there are clams and SPS on the bottom of the tank.

 

[scampi1]

Great looking tank. Just curious. How many bulbs are you running. Is it an 8 or more bulb. Doing something right. I am just stating my experiences with a 6 bulb.
Thanks

 

[rbtwo4]

nice tank how many gallons

 

[Jbanks]

Thanks guys! I use a 10 bulb ATI unit.. It's a 180 gallon rimless tank. Not taking anything away from your experience from.. trust me, I have seen where people do the exact same things with their tanks and one succeeds and the other struggles... It's a very interesting dynamic of this hobby.

 

[reefoman]

Hi guys,
3 yrs new to this. I run a 6 bulb ATI fixture over a 58 gallon tank 21" deep. I have always used ati bulbs and never had luck with SPS. Always slowly died. All my levels are good as well as husbandry. Frustrated to the point of getting out of hobby. A fellow reefers helped me out with my issue. I was not running enough bulbs in the 6500-10000 k range. I started running 4-5 of these bulbs with only 1blue plus then added a blue reef brite for more blue and things have taken off dramatically. Unbelievable. Polyp extension is great and everything is thriving. My bulb combos were always recommended by companies where I bought the bulbs. PAR is one important piece but so is Kelvin scale. This is where growth comes from. Blue and purple bulbs are more for disk dawn and aesthetics. JMHO.

I am happy to see that not only I am using 6500 K bulbs in my system
But that's true kelvins and pars are two different things... When I installed 3000 K Philips bulb all green, red and yellow colors in my tank become much stronger... I didn't like that color of light so I replaced that 3000 K with 6500 K and now is also cool.

 

[homegrowncichlid]

So Jbanks, looks like he subscribe to the PUR approach using heavy blue, but Scamp1 is leaning towards the PAR approach with daylight.

On another site reviewing PAR and PUR of UVL bulbs, I quote:
Photosynthetically Usable Radiation, or PUR, is that portion of Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) that is actually absorbed by photosynthetic pigments. Typically, these pigments as a group absorb violet, blue and portions of the green wavelengths, as well as most red wavelengths. Since zooxanthellae can 'tweak' pigment ratios in response to light intensity and/or spectrum (within reason!), we can only generalize the wavelengths associated with PUR - for our purposes, PUR for corals and other animals containing zooxanthellae includes bandwidths of 400-550 nm (violet, blue and some green) and 620-700 nm (red).
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2009/3/review


In addition, in another post from last year, NYreefnoob states in his second post regarding:
daylight and sunlamps. This is where you normally expect to get a large increase in PAR but that isn?t always the case with T5 lamps. The 50/50 daylight actinic combination lamps have as much or more PAR output as many of the daylight lamps.
http://www.manhattanreefs.com/forum/equipment/89249-t5-bulb-pars.html

SO in summary, right now I'm running 1x10000, 3x460 and 1x420 (got to have a 420 for asthetics) in my 5 lamp fixture, leaving me with 4 bulbs to play with. I'm assuming I'm maximixing my PAR and PUR output with the 3x460 and 1x10000 bulb combo. Is this correct? or is the PUR from the 460s though 100% useful by the coral, not at a high enough PAR to support coral growth?

 

[homegrowncichlid]

Ah, had my question answered from the other post. T5 Blue lights do have enough PAR and can be used interchangerably with daylight bulbs.

http://home.comcast.net/~stevelarse...s/&PHPSESSID=947114d83ebd43d27855241857aa7f39