I was asking about the lights because I have a 46g bowfront that's been setup almost a year that currently only has snails and thousands of pods. I moved my fish and softies to my new 120g tank a few months ago and it's basically been a big fuge since then. Our plan is to make it a clownfish & anemone habitat. The current lighting is a Coralife PC fixture with two 96W lamps. I've never been happy with the lights and need to upgrade to support the anemone. I've been planning on getting an MH pendant but the T5s sound interesting. How many watts do the four lamps produce?
Sounds like you have an awesome amount of lighting, isn't it around 160 watts for 4 t-5s?, Ho well do you like youre t-5s?, for as little space they take up, im considering replacing my 4 t-12s with 6 t-5s.
Are any of you aware of anyone that has successfully kept a Heteractis sp. anemone for many years under T5s?
The 3' T5HO are 39 watts each so 4 would be 156 watts. I think there is enough room to go 5 bulbs on the 46g. I really like them and they are just as bright and up to par with MH from my research if you have the individual reflectors . Have a small fan in the picture of my sump that comes on with the lights and my tank runs 78ish all the time and I keep my house about 76-78 with out it the tank gets to about 81. I do have 3 computer fans, two blow on the end caps and one blows on the ballast. I will try to take some pictures of lights this weekend. The reason I went with T5 over the MH is I would have had to get to MH for the 46, and the T5 run cooler.
From what I have been reading several aquarists are having great luck with T-5's. Even with acros and clams.
It is a retro, tho I didn't order a kit, I ordered all the parts from DIYreef.com and put it together my self, all attached to a pine board and then the stock plastic bow front canopy slides over the top. I have a crocea clam on the bottom of my tank for a could of months and it seems to be growing, and has colored up nicely. And the Stanghorn I picked up a couple of weeks ago that was brown is turning a nice shade of blueish/purple.
I have T5's on the 55- 2 bulbs does great with soft corals we are soon to add 2 more to brighten things up ( hey they were on sale) Ours are mounted in the canopy. Marineland does sell a 4 bulb fixture 48" and it seems to run about the same as a 48" power compact. Its really nice and easy to get to the fans and things to change out if one goes bad. only thing with those is it is a single reflector and everything seems a little squished for a wider tank. you would have to keep things more toward the middle.
That is the great thing about T5's. The HO (high output) T5's put out comparable light to a VHO T12 at 1/2 the power usage. Plus you place a parabolic reflector behind each bulb and you get better light transfer than the internal white reflectors in VHO's. Hey they run cooler too! Twice as nice and half the running cost! What more could you ask for?
I haven't forgot to take pictures. I loaned the camera out and I should be getting it back today or tomorrow. And I will get some pictures up ASAP. Taylor
Nice! We just got our second pair of T5's in last week. I had one on display at the Splash. Wipe those bulbs and reflectors down to help your light output. 8)
