Incandescent vs. CFL vs. T5HO vs. MH

So I was wondering what's the comparison to each of them, output wise (if they are comparable)......

I know CFL will use less watts to achieve the same amount of output as an incandescent....

For instance: a 55 watt CFL has an output equivalent of a 250 watt incandescent

Is there also an equivalent for T5HO or MH?

The reason I'm asking this is because I want to have higher lighting coral but my current setup is a NOVA 18" T5HO (1 18W 10K and 1 18W Actinic) and a 6W blue stunner strip.

Would putting a desk lamp over the tank with a 55 watt CFL boost my lighting to (250) + 36 + 6 = 292?! .... or does it not work that way....

Any info would be great! Thanks

 

Doesn't work that way. The T5HO you have are probably stronger than the CFL in their output.

 

Well that's a bummer, would have been a quick fix. Thanks for the info

 

+1 on 2 in 10

its confusing, most people still tend to think of watts as the key factor and many people still talk about watts per gallon in terms of lighting needs

watts are a unit of energy consumed and this does not give us the real information we need when lighting our tanks

in non aquarium related lighting - Lumen efficiency is a better way of assesing performance - basically how much light is being generated per watt of electricity being used

Incadescent lamps burn a lot of electricity per lumen generated and are the least efficient producers of light - but they are cheap!

LED - generate a lot of lumens per watt used thus are very efficient at creating light - but they are very expensive

CFLs - in various shapes , styles are more efficient than incadescent hence they indicate you get an average of 5X more lumens per watt ( so a 13 watt CFL would be compared with a 60 watt incadescent )

the problem with CFLS is that many of the shapes. styles are not ideal for our tank use - they are designed to throw light all around themselves which creates wasted light , some light gets sent into its parrallel or adjascent tube

T5s being tubular - means a good reflector can re direct all that light where you want it - downwards!


Steve

 

K+....wow good info! Cleared things up. Was a little confused on how it all worked. Thanks!

 

I may be wrong but don't led's put out a vary narrow spectrum, so even if they put out lots of lumens or even par you could still theoretically get the wrong kind of led's and have them be worse then cfl's for your corals. So I suppose the "stunner strip" may or maynot matter toward overall output.

for t5ho vs halide, think of them as basically the same with two caveat. on very deep tanks halides penetrate better, t5's may run your tank a little bit cooler(of course this difference increases as the amount of lighting does). neither of those matter for you.