What combo of T5s look best?

[mjsandbe]

What combo of T5s look best on a LPS & Soft coral tank?

So far I have not been thrilled with the look on my 90 gallon with T5s. I am not getting the glow I get with VHO. Now I see that there are 9! differant bulbs offered by Dr Foster Smith. Anyone out there with a bulb combo they love the look of?

Here are the 9 differant types:
Blue - Blue spectrum peaks at 450 nm
Sun - Full spectrum, high CRI lamp, 6000° K broad spectrum promotes growth
Aquablue - 60% Actinic Blue, 40% 11000° K
Actinic Blue - Peaks at 420 nm, the only T-5 HO true actinic tube available in the U.S. market
Ocean Blue - Blue spectrum for coral growth and coloration
Ocean White - 10000°K, brings the full intensity of tropical daylight
Planta - Enhanced red and blue spectral peaks for vibrant plant growth
Daylight SlimPaq - 10000°K Daylight
Actinic SlimPaq - 460nm Actinic

[JnS]

what bulb combo were you running with the VHO's?


i would go with sun and actnic blue...but i have no experiance with t5's

[marm64]

For my T5 I run 4 ATI Aquablue and 2 ATI BluePlus and I like the color. I had some ATI Suns in for a while but it was way to yellow for me. I think that If I was to do it over I would run 4 ATI Aquablue and 2 VHO actinics.

[mjsandbe]

Thanks for the imput marm64. When I was running my VHO on my 58 I had 2 URI Actinic White & 2 URI Super Actinic.

I am leaning towards trying this combo on my 90:
2 Aquablue - 60% Actinic Blue, 40% 11000° K
2 Actinic Blue - Peaks at 420 nm, the only T-5 HO true actinic tube available in the U.S. market

[HFG]

I have 6 bulbs

The two on the end are on their own ballast. Atinics there.
I started with three sun and one blue pluss. Looks good when the atinics are on, or all or on, but not just the center 4 (little yellow).
I switched just one bulb from GE day to the sun bulb. The sun is much brighter to the eye (whiter, crisper).

I have a bunch of new bulbs, sun, and aqua blues. If your interested in swapping the around, your welcome to come over and try different combos. I also have a lux meter to fool around with... not PAR, but it helps some.

[David Grigor]

What ballast are you running ? Can you mix match bulb types ?

I'm running on a 3 ATI Actinic Blues on a Icecap 660 and 2 VHO Actnics on a Icecap 430.

I tried ATI Blue Plus instead of actnics but didn't like how it drowned out the colors of corals and looked to fake. I didn't like the Sun Bulbs at all just too yellow.

On a LPS / Softy tank, however I personally would go back to all VHOs. IMO you can beat the overall performance for LPS/Softies. You should tinker with T5s only if wanting some Acroporas as well.

My combination, LPS doesn't do as well as did with all VHOs but it's a tradeoff if you want to also keep Acroporas as the T5s is a must in that situation to acheive decent colors on you acroporas.

[HFG]

I am not sure what you mean by mix bulb types. T-5 will only work on t-5 systems and T-12 T-8... I dont know. I have a shop light that takes T-12 or T-8... T-5s are a whole different system though.
Some ballests are interchangable, but my research does not go far into that.

If you mean can you run different spectrum T-5, sure why not?

Ya the day looks butt ugly alone. But its ok with a couple attinics.
There doesn't seem to be much point in the blue pluss.
I want to try attinic day day aqua aqua attinic and attinic aqua aqua aqua aqua attinic and aquas down the line...
Unfortunatly, bulb combos are low on my priority list, so they collect dust in the closet
IMO the corals that I get from Jerry look a Heck of alot better under my T-5s than his VHO... but he thinks I'm color handycaped.

[mjsandbe]

I have two tanks. A 58 SPS tank that had IceCap 660 VHO and now has a 400 watt MH, and a 90 LPS & Soft tank that had PC and now has IceCap 660 T5s.The T5s have been on the tank a couple of years and I have tried a couple of differant sets of bulbs. When I first set it up there was very little available in T5s. I have thought about changing the 90 over to VHO, but I am not sure it is worth it to switch over, especially if I can get a good color out of the T5s. I should mention that the corals love the T5s and do not seem to care about the color like I do

On a related note I think when I finish building the hood for the 58 400 watt MH I will supliment with VHO Atinic and not T5 Atinic. I have not been as impressed with the T5 Atinics as I am with URI VHO atinics.