T5-HO lights on 125 gallon aquarium

Hi everyone,

I am currently running a 29 gallon biocube with T5 HO's on it. I have had great success with my corals with this set-up. Next week I will be purchasing a 125 gallon aquarium. My question is this - has anyone ran T5-HO's on this size of aquarium and had any luck with corals?

 

Yes.I have a 90 gallon with a 4 bulb t5 Nova extreme. You could do a 6 bulb fixture if you plan on sps.

 

I agree with Vinny's suggestion a 6x39W fixture should do fine. Make sure it is 72" long. You could also do a 4X80W, 5 foot long bulbs, fixture if you don't mind 6" on each end with little light.

 

I have found a 4x80watt 72" long from Aquatraders. Before you jump on me about them I know I will have to change out the lights. I currently have been running one of their fixtures I bought about 4 months ago over my 29 biocube. I changed out the lights and it works fine. For the price of the fixture I don't think I can go wrong even if I have to change some things out. As always I welcome any feed back on this.

 

I use 6X80W on my 100g. All my sps are showing significant improvement over the 4X54W they were used to. Even my lps that are shaded somewhat are starting to color back up, and my clams love the new light.

 

I run 6 x 54w on my 125...every other bulb is staggered to cover the 6' of length...it's a bit darker on the ends but not noticeably so...I just don't put anything in the last 8"-10" on either end that needs higher light...you would have to do a retro kit to do this though...I keep a blue maxima clam and H. crispa on the sandbed where all 6 bulbs overlap and have had great growth on both...the problem I have with the 6' fixtures is to create a "6 bulb" equivalent they use 12 36" bulbs...I understand there are no 6' bulbs so they have to do that, but since there is only a few $$$ difference between bulb lengths it means double the cost to replace bulbs. If you don't want to do a retro I think the 60" fixture is your best bet...I think the 60"/80w bulbs are slightly harder to find though.

 

There are fewer manufacturers of 60" bulbs as Reef-A-Holic stated. ATI makes them and UVL does I think. Not sure of who else.

 

Geisemann makes 60"X80W bulbs, thats what I use

 

According to the Aquatraders web site there set up is for the 60" bulbs "I think" and they just stagger them to acomplish reaching the full 72". I am open to other suggestion tho. Does anyone think that this set up will not work?

 

The only problem I see it that the reflectors are not molded or individual so there will be a good loss of light unfortunately.