T5's Vs Mh

milkton · Feb 14, 2010

Hey guys, after months of MH info, a friend of mine has suggested T5's. I've done some research on them and in my opinion, they seem to be in every way better than MH's. Can someone tell me the advantages and disadvantages of both these types of lighting?? For my new 135g, (72x24x18 i believe) and if i do decide to go with T5 lighting, how many of them do i need and how many watts each??

Thanks alot!

ben1987 · Feb 14, 2010

T5 can only penetrate to a max of 2 feet, meaning anything 2 feet and over halides are the only way.

Halides theres less bulbs to change and less often. Every year or so compared to 6-9 months on t5's

If you have 6 T's to swap regular at £20 per tube it can mount up. Although more bulbs alows you to fine tune the colour and they arent as hot as halides.

How many you need depends on what you want to keep.

xxBarneyxx · Feb 15, 2010

Yep pretty much as Ben said. T5's give you a better choice of bulbs to fine tune the light colour and they run slightly cooler. MH gives better water penetration (only really an issue for very deep tanks) and are cheaper (bulbs don't need replacing as often and you need less of them).

It does depend on what you want to keep though. I believe you can buy 5ft T5 tubes but they arent the easiest things to get hold of so you would probably want to get 4ft 54w tubes and stagger them over the tank. MH would be easier in this regard as you would just need maybe 3 250w units compared to 6-8 T5 tubes(depending on where the brace bar is in the tank and what livestock you want to keep).

seffieuk · Feb 15, 2010

Juwel do 5ft T5 (well actually 1200 but they are for the five foot rio), but they are expensive - Iquatics are thinking of manufacturing them within the next few months, which I for one eagerly await :good:

Seffie x

xxBarneyxx · Feb 15, 2010

iquatics are a great place to buy from by the way. Bought 6 10k T5 tubes off them recently, really cheap and so far they are working well. (sorry off topic a little bit but if you where thinking of T5 and wanted to buy tubes I thought it was worth recommending them).

milkton · Feb 15, 2010

thanks for the awesome replies guys! Is what your talking about an online seller or are they in the UK?? cause i live in Canada

.

Just wondering, which would you choose for your tank, Metal Halides or T5's and why??

Thanks

injektion · Feb 16, 2010

ben1987 said:
T5 can only penetrate to a max of 2 feet, meaning anything 2 feet and over halides are the only way.

Halides theres less bulbs to change and less often. Every year or so compared to 6-9 months on t5's

If you have 6 T's to swap regular at £20 per tube it can mount up. Although more bulbs alows you to fine tune the colour and they arent as hot as halides.

How many you need depends on what you want to keep.

i've heard conflicting stories about how long bulbs need to be changed with t5's and MH's. i've heard it should be the other way around (as per ben's quote)

ben1987 · Feb 16, 2010

No its 100% deffinate more often on T5's

xxBarneyxx · Feb 17, 2010

Yeah T5's for sure is between 6-9 months. Put a new tube up against the same make tube that is over 6 months old and you can tell with the naked eye the difference in light output.

If I could do it over again I would go for MH, gives more choice of livestock and costs less to replace the bulbs (heat is more of an issue though and generally they are higher light output and hence use more electric). However I went with T5's because I already had 2 arcadia light units from back when I had hi-tech planted tanks so was cheaper.

Really is personal choice. If you arent keeping high light demanding livestock (ie SPS corals and Clams) then either will do fine. If you are keeping clams or SPS corals though then MH is a better solution most of the time.

ben1987 · Feb 19, 2010

milkton said:
thanks for the awesome replies guys! Is what your talking about an online seller or are they in the UK?? cause i live in Canada .

Just wondering, which would you choose for your tank, Metal Halides or T5's and why??

Thanks

my tanks halides, for hard corals

milkton · Feb 19, 2010

ben1987 said:
milkton said:

thanks for the awesome replies guys! Is what your talking about an online seller or are they in the UK?? cause i live in Canada .

Just wondering, which would you choose for your tank, Metal Halides or T5's and why??

Thanks

Click to expand...

my tanks halides, for hard corals

i thought T5's have the power to keep hard corals as well right? right now im leaning towards MH, though T5's sound really tempting :hey:

on the other hand, im also hearing some problems with MH and LPS. Im guessing i shouldnt keep LPS like euphillia's with 250W halides?? But i want to keep clams and SPS as well!!! so 175W halides or are they still too high for euphillia's??

ben1987 · Feb 19, 2010

ive got LPS under twin 250's.

You do have to be careful tho

as for T5s and SPS you need a lot of tubes and they need to be quite close.

milkton · Feb 20, 2010

alright, MH is what im going to go for, for now :hey:

. Some of my friends told me that 10k bulbs are best for the coral while 14k bulbs work, but are more for your eyes and not as good as 10k bulbs for raising corals. Is this true??

Another ? is: I already have a 250W MH with a bulb that was fired up 6 hours a day. Its been a year now since the bulb was installed, to my eyes, the color of the bulb (turned on) looks crisp white (which i must say, no person should ever do such an idiotic thing like what i did, my eyes are still burning :shout:

), but when the light shines upon my tank, it looks more yellow-ish. Is this normal or is there a problem with my tank(or my eyes)? I cannot tell the difference between how it looked like a year before because i bought this MH set second handed.

Thanks guys