tank lighting

I am thinking about updating my lighting, I currently have a Hamiton VHO system that is about 10 yrs old. The bulbs are 60" & 110 watts ea (4). My lfs has the Sunlight supply system retro kits with T5 bulbs. The bulbs are 80 watts but they say that because of the design of the reflector, the intensity of the light into the water is 300% more. Has anyone tried this system or heard about them? They say the bulbs last 1 1/2 - 2 yrs which is much longer than my current bulbs ( about 6 months ). Thanks for any info.


PS. the tank is 150 gallons, I know I probably need more wattage and I do have a set of mh bulbs @ 150 watts but I do not use them because of the heat and cost to run them.

anyone know if its worth the change over from the old t12's to the t5's and what your experiance has been with the t5's

wow, didn't mean to stump everyone. I thought with all the pros here I could get some advice. and yes this is a serious question, just wanted some advice before I went and spent the money

Thanks for the response,
my tank is 60" x24" x 24". I had planned on 4 bulbs at the moment then adding more if needed ( later when more funds are available ).
They say that the light into the water is about 300% more because of the design of the reflectors. So I thought that I may not need as much wattage.

Amphiprion said:

You'll need a bunch of bulbs to light the tank simply because the spread is narrow. If you bunch up the four tubes in a particular spot (say the middle of the tank), I'd just concentrate your corals in that area. Like I said, though, later you'll want probably about 8 tubes for full coverage.

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cool, thanks. Maybe I will stay with the 4 that I currently have and add the t5's for now. when I have additional $$$ then I can add 4 more. what seemed to be nice is that they are supposed to last up to 1.5 yrs before needing to be replaced. seemed like some savings down the road.