T8 Interpet Daylight Plus Changes

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George Farmer

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Many of you may be aware that my favourite T8 tube for the planted tank is the Interpet Daylight Plus. It gives excellent colour rendition and plant growth and I've recommend this tube time and again to fellow hobbyists through various forums and PFK.

However, Interpet have replaced their excellent Daylight Plus T8 tubes with Daylight Marine (10000K).

It also has an internal reflector. Half of the inside of the tube is coated with reflective material so in theory you don't need a seperate reflector.

Trouble is, for some light units i.e. Juwel light-bar and Hagen units, the alignment of the reflector is 90 degrees out i.e. the reflected light points directly toward the front or rear of the tank, depending on how you install it.

I have tried out the new Daylight Marine and the output is a crisp white, but not the nice green rendition of the original Daylight Plus. I also needed to use a reflector to bounce the light downwards from the 90 degree-out light direction....

I have e-mailed Interpet direct about this, and the lack of PC T5 reflectors. I will let you know if they respond.

Meanwhile I will be looking in my LFS for some old stock of Daylight Plus.

Perhaps you may prefer the new 10000K Marine tubes, but I know I do not.

Just a heads up.
 
Hi George

I ordered some of the Daylight plus on your reccomendation and was sent these as a replacement, the reflector is a real nightmare, what a waste of light.

If you find any online let me know as I will be looking to replace them

Aaron
 
Strange how they'd replace what appears to be such a popular and superb product, I have two of these PC T5 tubes and like them alot. Dartford Aquatics sent me a T5 PC tube this week, it was the original Daylight Plus which is good.
 
Hi George

I ordered some of the Daylight plus on your reccomendation and was sent these as a replacement, the reflector is a real nightmare, what a waste of light.

If you find any online let me know as I will be looking to replace them

Aaron
Sorry about that Aaron. Unfortunately you are not the only one that has done the same on my recommendation or otherwise.

The positioning of the internal reflector is a real issue and I hope that Interpet hear my concerns. They've done the same on the Triplus too.
 
Doh. I noticed, as I got a triplus to :blink:

I will wait and see what happens then get them all replaced I think.

My ligthing upgrade has been one nightmare after another lol. Send wrong ballast, replaced with dodgy ballast, tube broke and now I have crappy tubes lol.

Never mind

Aaron
 
Just getting my head around the internal reflector issue....took me a while! Because it is built-in you are stuck with the reflector position based on the also fixed mounting of the tubes: you can't rotate the tube to get the best reflector position.
 
Just getting my head around the internal reflector issue....took me a while! Because it is built-in you are stuck with the reflector position based on the also fixed mounting of the tubes: you can't rotate the tube to get the best reflector position.
That's it. The Hagen Life-Glo used to have the same design, but Hagen realised it wasn't the best idea so introduced the Life-Glo 2 that has no internal reflector. Cheaper too.

I'm not convinced it's a good idea anyway, even if it is directing light appropriately. Surely 100% of the phosphor coating inside of the tube that should "light up" does not with an internal reflector, and the reflector itself has replaced half of the the coating.

I honestly have no idea why Interpet have taken this route. I hope they provide some explanation.

I'm not normally a fan of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy (how do we progress otherwise?), but this is one exception. Basically what they've isolated all Juwel tank owners from using Interpet T8s. And I was probably one of their best Daylight Plus customers....

Aaron, you could e-mail Interpet yourself about your experience. The more people that make them aware, the more likely something will be done. After all we are the customer.

For those that don't understand the internal relfector idea -



As you can see the light isn't directed correctly (downward) with a Juwel light-bar (or many other light units with the same vertical pin configuration).
 
I was wondering the same thing, surely now there is half of the light missing, because there is no longer light being emitted from the tube now covered with reflector. Even if it is internally reflected it now has to pass through a layer of phospor to get out which is not really that efficient. The 30% claim of output increase could be as much related to the 10,000K as anything else, the same claim made by Realux for their T6 tubes which are '40% brighter' than an equivalen wattage T8...11,000K vs ~6500K is a difference of around 40%.
 
I guess its becaus most reef keepers seem to have hanging luminaires that they've assumed (badly) that this change is for the good.

For planted tanks with T8 lamps then I guess Arcadias Freshwater Lamp will have the market for people not wanting to spend loads.

On reflectors for the PC lamps. will watch out for their response George. I hope they don't change that bulb to a marine one, as thre doesn't sem to be an alternative from other makers that fits at the moment.

andy
 
I've always used the Arcadia reflectors, the clips that come with the PC T5 starters have been fine to mount both of my PC T5 tubes, just need to make sure you use the correct length of reflector to match the tube. The clips with my 36w T5 were metal and a bit pants, the clips with the 24w were plastic and a much better and more stable fit to the tube.
 
George & aaronc

Did either of you buy these of an ebay shop by any chance? The same thing has just happened to me. Ordered daylight plus, received daylight marine.
 
its the same with my rena light bar

so if i was to buy one it would face the wrong way!

also i think george also pointed me into the correct direction about Daylight Plus but that was 6 months ago with the good bulbs with no relector.

george do you have interpets email address i'll email them later aswell to express my feeling

chris
 

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