Help T5 8 Bulb Config and Limitations

All of the bulbs have actinic spectrum in them. The Aquablue Special is a 50/50 bulb, the Blue Plus is 60% actinic 40% blue spectrum and the Purple Plus is is a Blue Plus with red spectrum added.

The lighting will look around 14000K.

 

The cost is more like $170 and the bulbs are good for a year.

Agreed on the cost effectiveness of LED. You need to be careful with their use with coral because the whites are aound 6500K and this tends to cause SPS corals to brown out. I did see one of the manufacturers claim their whites are 15000K. This is the company that I would go with if I were to buy LED.

 

I have a 4x54 now. For fish and zoas are fine, but I'm at the bare minimum. I'm planning on getting a rather large clam and monti. My current fixture won't cut it.

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CJ you could go six bulbs and do great from there.

 

LEDs in IMO for the most part still have a long way to go. I love the technology, but too many but's and if's.

Expensive to run? How do you figure. Cost of electricty, have you priced out MH?? 2 bulbs is about $200.00, plus T5's and cost of running them. Don't forget massive heat.

Runtime is about a year on T5's depending of course how many hours a day the bulbs are on. Cost on bulbs are about $170.00.

It's not rocket science, if its too much light I don't install a pair of bulbs or just disconnect it internally in the fixture. Look I now have a 6 bulb fixture. Wow!

Do you always looking to find the need to question whatever I say or do? Been doing this for a while and quite technically inclined.

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Pulling two will work well, light spread is the challenge with T5HO fixtures.

If your tank is 18" deep you might have some light spillage.

 

Yeah I could.. I was thinking that myself.. I'm iching on getting this thing setup.. I could take my 4 out of my fixture & I have 2 extra bulbs, but heres the issue. I would be running 2 daytime & 4 atinics for now, until I ordered my new bulbs.. Not sure if that is really a good idea. What do you think?

 

It won't hurt, things should color up real well. You will be using more bulbs than you are now so it will help.

Place the bulbs act, day, act, act, day, act. If it has a dawn/dusk setting use the new actinics in there and then spread the bulbs around the rest of the sockets.

 

If pulling two will work that's fine. I wasn't sure if it would be bad for the ballast.. I was going to look at the ballast specs.. It's a standard All-Glass 90Gal with Overflow.. Not sure the depth off the top of my head & at work right now.. I'll check later on..

 

Working my way from the center of the fixture & then work my way out?

NONE
act
day
act
center moonlighting
act
day
act
NONE

Will that work? Four are Giesemann bulbs & the backups are 2 Current Actinics.

One thing.. I have three power cables. One for moonlighting, not an issue. The other two are as configured.. I tested the fixture last night & this was my results..

one = T5 power cable
two = T5 power cable

Fixture Config:
one
one
two
two
center moonlighting
two
two
one
one

So to run dawn to dusk, I would have to move the 2 daytime from the middle to the end or run the pair on the end as my dawn & dusk on the middle.. Confusing I know.. LOL