Is this fixture any better than the one I have?

The listing says "reflector" and not "reflectors", which says to me that it doesn't include individual reflectors for each bulb -- a feature that makes T5 HO lighting perform as well as it does. Yes, the replacement bulbs might be cheaper than your current power compact (PC) lighting system and the useable lifespan of the T6 bulbs is likely longer than PC bulbs, but I wouldn't spend $90 + shipping to buy it. While I don't know any of the actual output numbers and couldn't point you to specific threads at this point, I've seen posts around the internet stating that T5 HO lighting without the individual reflectors has only a marginally greater output than an equivalent PC lighting set-up. While purely speculation, I wouldn't think that T6 lighting without individual reflectors is going to be that much better than T5 lighting without individual reflectors.

Basically, I'd save the $90+ and put it towards a more trusted and proven lighting system if you're looking to have higher light corals or a clam that require more light than what your current PC lights can provide.

AnnetteG said:

Thank you, just what I needed to know!

Can you tell me if I'm understanding something correctly? Is a T-5 Retrofit kit designed to change my existing fixture into a T-5?

Click to expand...

You're welcome!

Generally, a retrofit kit is intended to be installed into a canopy or a some sort of DIY fixture. It's rare that a retrofit kit would sucessfully and easily be installed into an existing commercial light fixture to replace a different type of lighting. The spacing inside of most commercial PC fixtures I've seen wouldn't be large enough to accomodate an equal number of T5s with individual reflectors. Each T5 individual reflector is around 2.5" wide, while the space in my old 4 x 65w Coralife PC fixture is only around 5" wide, meaning only 2 T5 bulbs with individual reflectors could fit in there if there was a way to easy modify it to handle the T5s.

Yep, you can build the retrofit kit into your canopy.

I ended up building my own canopy to install a couple T5 retrofit kits, as the one we had was too short and really not a convenient design. While the one I DIY-ed is not perfect (or complete), it's much better than the old one.