T-5 Bulb Selection

ooja3k

ooja3k

AC Members
Jul 3, 2007
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San Luis Obispo
Im looking to upgrade the standard bulbs in my 36" Nova Extreme T-5 fixture...

Right now it has the stock 2 Slimpaq 10000k and 2 Slimpaq actinic plus

I'm thinking about getting:
2 - D&D/Giesemann Aquablue Plus
1 - URI Super Actinic
1 - URI Aquasun

What do you guys think???

What T-5 bulb configurations are you guys running/would recommend???
 
With those bulbs you should get good par and I think the color will be about like a 10k, you might think about 3 Blueplus and the 1 actinic, with that it might bring you closer to a 12k-14k color wise but it depends what color you like either way those combo's will give good par.
 
The Aquasun is a good tube, however, I would suggest the ATI tubes for your other selections in place of D&D. They have a higher PAR on average. I am curious to know what their re-released SunPro tube can do--it was even brighter than the Aquasun before. All BluePlus and an actinic tube would give you more like a 20K look. What you have now will give you more of the 12-14K look (with a decent amount of PAR).
 
The reason I thought his choice would give a 10k look is because I am running 2 D&D's 1 GE Starcoat and 1 Actinic and that is a little more yellow than a 10k look at least to me it is
 
ooja3k said:
reefgeek.com only has the new ati Pro color... not the sun one...

im now thinking 2 10000k aquasuns and 2 super actinic...

what about that setup?
Click to expand...

My bad. It seems they only have it in 48" 54w tubes. What you decided on will work, but it is lacking a bit in PAR. The superactinics just don't have nearly enough PAR compared to the "blue (insert name here)" bulbs. I would go for just one actinic and try a blue bulb instead of the other one. I think you will be happier with that.

Archer, you may be right about that. I read the initial post incorrectly in that I thought it was referring to a different aquablue bulb, which is a 12K tube. It may indeed be more yellow than that.
 
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