got ethical husbandry?

T5 vs MH

hiepatitis

hiepatitis

Guest
BARcard
Ok I know this has been done many times but I want to hear from only people who have used both lighting systems. I myself have gone 250 SE, 250 DE + T5 Actinics, 400W SE, and now I'm gonna give all T5's a shot in a mini propagation tanks. Let's leave the glimmer effect aside and talk only about performance and coral growth, health and coloration.
 
Levi,

What size is your tank. I have a fixture that you can borrow (Maristar) but I told Doug he can borrow it first. What are you running now?
 
I run both T5HO only and a MH T5HO combo light. With the T5HO only its hard to get that 420nm actinic pop. People who have seen my tank can attest to it. A coral may look brownish or greyish in my T5HO tank but once I put it under the MH it looks green or blue. Growth seems pretty similar with the two. Currently for the coloration I like my combo fixture better.
 
250 se w/pc and then T5 supplementation on 58g - okay
250 de wi/t5 (over driven) supplementation - growth very good on 58g
Corals were SPS and softies

Relatively old t-5 (over driven) on 58g tank - good not great.
Corals are lps and softies

T-5's on 155g at work with SLS Tek fixture - look great - growth is good
Corals are lps and softies

All cases health, coloration, growth was and/or is good.
 
I have not seen a T5 setup that could fluoresce as well as a MH.
As far as growth and health, I have no doubts that both will work wonderfully if both have good reflectors. (I have both).

The nice thing with T5 that you can't get with MH, is the coverage. It is very uniform and very minimal shadows. This helps with getting light to the polyps on the underside of an SPS branch.
 
Oh yeah I recently got a whole bunch of new bulbs that I was planning on trying out on the fixtures. We will see if this changes anything about my current opinions.
 
[quote author=Gomer link=topic=3942.msg46665#msg46665 date=1213993039]
I have not seen a T5 setup that could fluoresce as well as a MH.
As far as growth and health, I have no doubts that both will work wonderfully if both have good reflectors. (I have both).

The nice thing with T5 that you can't get with MH, is the coverage. It is very uniform and very minimal shadows. This helps with getting light to the polyps on the underside of an SPS branch.


[/quote]

All the more reason for a combo fixture. :)
 
not really ian. The typical combo is MH main and T5 actinic. The solution combo is MH main and T5 Main. If the built in reflector T5 from UVL I heard about, overdriven with an icecap, yields the same look as the t12VHO, then the solution is to use those in a pure t5 setup.
 
While I have run both on my softie tank (only mh on my stonies) its hard to really tell, I went from 4x54w tfs, to 2x54w + 2x175w reeflux but I only have those on a few hours a day. They are softies so hard to really gauge how much of an "upgrade" it may be in growth parameters. However one thing I will notice (and I no you said no glitter lines) is the tank really looks stagnant with only t5 bulbs.
 
[quote author=Gomer link=topic=3942.msg46669#msg46669 date=1213993816]
not really ian. The typical combo is MH main and T5 actinic. The solution combo is MH main and T5 Main. If the built in reflector T5 from UVL I heard about, overdriven with an icecap, yields the same look as the t12VHO, then the solution is to use those in a pure t5 setup.
[/quote]

That is true, that is why I just got some bulbs to run some day light on my T5s with the combo fixture.
 
Yes. absolutely agree about the stagnant comment lol. It is sorta like walking into a house where all the walls and carpet and furniture are beige. Doesn't matter how brilliant colored the decorative flowers and paintings are, it is still annoyingly ..beige. :p
 
I have a little different experience, I've found corals color up better under T5, I reckon it has something to do with the light wrapping around the coral stimulating pigment on a larger surface area of the coral instead of stimulating from the point source.

VHO has the best fluorescing color IME, halide would be second followed by T5.
 
or if 400 doesn't do it for u,u can try the new 600watts MH from pgs.man those thing glow.that 600 blow 400 hqi away.all my corals respond pretty well with the 600.epecially those wild colony.
 
Tuberider,

I agree with the point source aspect of MH. I was gonna try experimenting with a light mover to see if I can eliminate some dark spots on corals. If you look at my SPS, the light exposed parts are colored and the shaded spots are brown. I'm thinking about supplementing the 400W with the ATI pro-color to get some red spectrum in there. The 20K pretty much covers the 450nm range and I don't care much for the 420nm range.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top