NO T5 vs. P-Compact Flourescent

echoofformless

echoofformless

Peat Advocate & Defender Of Snails
Oct 1, 2005
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Phil Uh Del Feeya
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I've come across a few writings lately that are claiming that PC lighting isn't all it's cracked up to be. The claim is that although they provide strong wattage, they lack in other areas that are important to plants. Equally I have been reading that normal output T5s (like those cool Coralife slim fixtures) are far better for plants even at lower wattages.

Does anyone have opinions on this?

I recently replaced my old T12 shop light (2x40w) over the 55g tank with an Aqualight PC (2x65) and it almost seems as though the tank has gotten a little darker as odd as it sounds.

I also have a Coralife NO T5 fixture (2x28w) over the tank and honestly it seems as though that fixture illuminates the tank a lot more than the PC fixture.
 
What other areas do PC lighting lack in that T5 bulbs provide?

PC lights are T5 bulbs bent in half so it does suffer from minor restrike, otherwise they're the same kind of bulbs and the differences would be up to the materials used by manufacturers.

The advantage to PC lighting is that you can fit more wattage into a smaller space. If space isn't a constraint then a T5 bulb would be slightly better but I wouldn't say it's far better.
 
I don't recall exactly but I could look around and I try to dig up the articles, blogs, forum posts etc that make the claim that PC bulbs are not what they're cracked up to be.
 
I can tell you from my experience that even though it may seem dimmer...

CF actually get more light into the tank..

Me for instance had 160 watts of NO t12 lights over a 60 gallon.

I bought a 4x65 Current fixture to replace these and even with only 1 bank(130 watts) of CF my plants grew SIGNIFICANTLY faster and with better color.
 
T-5's are far superior to PC's and actually PC's are at the bottom of the list as far as lighting goes when it comes to a reef setup, I cant recall where it was posted but CF's tend to start dropping of in there Par at about 8-10 inches under the surface but with HO T-5's with individual reflectors they can be comparable to MH's and if you run them on an IC 660 they will actually out perform some of the 250 watt MH to a depth of about 18- 20 inches. Here is a pic of my Blue Crocea that was about 2 1/2 inches and is about 4-5 inches now after about 15- 18 months and a Gold Maxima that I have had for about 6-7 months and both are about 20 inches below the surface and my tank is lit with only T-5's on an IC 660.

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Here is a link showing the par values between MH and T-5's
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...pagenumb er=1
 
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