Reef Lighting

What Type of lighting do you use and why?

I use T5s because MH are too expensive and at the time the cheepest fixture i saw was T5s O and evreyone told me to get the T5s over the PCs because PCs are crap (Sorry PC Users)

 

Well for now I use PC but I'm upgrading to 2 x 250watt metal halides in August. Also, I don't think PC's are crap they are just not that great but if you just have softies and some lps they do just fine.

 

I honestly bought the T-5's due to the price on the MH's. I was spending alot of money in the beginning, so that was all I could afford. I later bought a second 4 bulb identicle fixture and doubled my lights to 8 bulbs. I actually like the T-5's better than the halides, because there are alot more color combonations. I like the shimmer you get with the halides, but I like the color of the T-5's better. Maybe someday I will run both.

 

I chose PCs due to the fact that when I read about lighting in multiple books, the newest SW books I could find being 2004-5ish, they all said PCs "are" better than HO's and produce more PAR than VHOs. Looking back I wich I had started looking on forumas at what everyone else was getting and what they were keeping before I made my choice. Just recently thought about upgrading to T5s but with the whole thing of LiFI and the news of Current discontinuing some of their MHs i've decided to wait to see what is going to come.

 

I run a mixture of halides and t5's. I have personally seen the best growth under halides and love them for the sparkle(silly reason but something has to be said for looks) but it is hard to beat T5's for versatility of color

 

I'm running a 8 x 54wt T5s using a mix of bulbs to set the color of the tank. Why, because they are much, much cooler and consume significantly less electricity than MHs... since I'm keeping fish and soft corals, it is more than sufficient.

 

VHO's on my old reef. Compact Flouresents and Ceramic heat lamps on my turtle tanks.
I'll have 400W MH on the new reef.

 

MH and T12 VHO's for Actinics

 

Otty are the T12s stronger than the T5s?

 

90 Gallon: T5's here. I have a Tek 8x54W with UVL bulbs (4x Superactinic, 2x 75/25 and 2x Actinic White). I chose T5's for the ability to change out bulbs to tweak the color output. Also, they run cooler.

10 Gallon: T5's also. A small Nova Extreme 2x18W (1x 10000K and 1x 460nm Actinic)