T-5 Bulb Selection

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
 
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?

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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