New Lights (old ones melted!!)

[ReeferJunkie]

Hi guys,
Last week I got home from surfing and walked into a house smelling of burnt plastic, knowing it was time for the tank lights to come on I rushed to the back room!! Sure enough one of my 28w T-5no fixtures had melted!!! Luckily the light burnt out before any harm could be done besides the fixture being ruined. This brings me to my question. I was already looking into redoing my entire lighting setup when this happened and was leaning towards t-5ho. My tank is 75g, dsb, 120lbs live rock, now 3 28w t-5no, 2 VHO actinics (not sure, see my last thread) currently aggressive reef. I have a niger trigger, red corris wrasse, dragon wrasse, zebra eel wich will be traded shortly (once I convince the wife), yellow tail damsels, marroon clown (probably going also), sailfin tang. As far as corals its only a few mushrooms and a toadstool. I am wanting to turn this into a LPS/softcoral reef once the mean guys are out. The owner of my LFS has stopped selling t-5 systems/retrofits all together because of similar problems that hes encountered and only sells VHO, PC's and MH. With all the threads Ive read on the downfalls to VHO these days I am leaning towards the t-5's again, but obviously hesitant. Has anyone had any problems with their t-5 setups? Would I be disappointed or putting myself in a bad position by purchasing VHO? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Loverotties]

Never herd of T5no just T5-HO.

[ReeferJunkie]

The fixtures currently in the canopy are:

Current Nova
T-5 Slimpaq Retrofit
48" 28w 10kk
Model# 1106

[Jadinop]

NO means normal output. T5 is simply a reference to the diameter of the bulb. Both T5 NO and HO are commonly available bulbs/fixtures. I have not heard of melting problems with either type of bulb and would suspect the quality of your fixture or the most likely cause, moisture and salt creep.

Get a quality T5HO fixture or retro and you will be happy.

[ReeferJunkie]

Thanks Jadinop
I think the problem I had with the fixture is that they were too close together without proper ventilation. The canopy thats in use right now is one that I built for my old 55 so its short by almost 8in. Having 6 lights in there doesnt leave a lot of room. My fault. I talked with the owner of the LFS yesterday, he stopped selling t-5's because of the end pins bending and the end caps breaking and customers bringing them back. My guess is that theyre man handling them too much. Electrical equipment = handle gently....duhh!! Im getting measurements today and going to price out materials to build my new canopy. Once the new top is ready Im gonna order a t-5ho system. Im thinking of getting a ballast(s) which will overdrive the lights, but how much of the life span is lost doing this? Also, Im leaning towards a 6 fixture set up with all t-5ho (proper ventilation of course) but starting to think this would be too much light. What do you think?? 75g LPS/soft, 6 t-5ho overdriven, too much??? The other configuration that Im looking at is 4 t-5ho overdriven with flourescent no actinics for aesthetics. Thanks

[ReeferJunkie]

oops completely forgot. The t-5's will be 48" 54w, the flourescent no's are 36" 30w.

[tangmang23]

i agree with jadinop. I have 9 HO bulbs over my 120 and with fans, the heat is not all that intense. not enough to melt most plastics anyways. Quality units should be made of aluminum. Id recommend a splash sheild no matter what to avoid any build up on the ends of the bulbs or endcaps.

my system is retro, consists of 1 ic430 and 2 ic660 ballasts. all bulbs are 48inch. id say a 6 bulb setup will be nice for your 75g and will allow you to keep most corals