another "lighting" question

Pufferpoison

Pufferpoison

Like a dolls eyes
Feb 6, 2006
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ok getting my 90 gallon tank in a few weeks. i have a coralife protein skimmer, emperor 400 biowheel and 50lbs of pool filter sand, 30 lbs of caribsea aragonite sand and 20 lbs of caribsea arag-alive sand. which i will do in layers. i've also got a 250Watt stealth heater. 2 maxi-jet 1200 powerheads and was leaning to a SEIO Super Flow Pump (not sure of size though) and possible a magnum cannister filter? or maybe an eheim???and 125 lbs of fugi live rock, but i dont' know what to do with lighting, i do eventually want to have some corals and Anemones, i can't afford Metal Halide right now and was leaning towards a nova extreme t5-ho 216Watts (4x54watts) for about 200 bucks from drsfostersmith.com but was wondering if that would be ok or am i just wasting money because i will need something a lot better later. also are the jebo lights any good, their about 120 bucks on ebay for the same wattage. any recommondations would be greatly apprieciated or if you know of some other place with cheaper / better lighting or another type of lighting??? thanks all
 
Lighting can be very confusing. That article is dated. When people refer to "VHO" lighting, they usually mean T-12 or T-8 fluorescents. VHO technology overdrives the tubes creating greater light output.

The "T" in fluorescent lighting refers to the diameter of the tube in terms of eigths of an inch. Therefore, T8s are an inch in diameter and T12s are 1.5 inches in diameter.

The Nova Extreme T5-HOs lights are only 5/8s of an inch in diameter. T5-HO lights have higher PAR (photosynthetically active radiation) output than any other type of fluorescent lighting watt-per-watt.

A big part of the reason is because T5s are so thin (less than half the diameter of T12s) you can place an individual reflector over each bulb allowing far more light to be directed downward where it counts. You can't do that with either a big fat T12 or even PCs because the tube itself blocks the returning light.

The best T5-HO units have such reflectors. Novas do not. However, you'll pay the roughly the same for a quality T5-HO unit as you would for MH (maybe even a little bit more). As with everything: you get what you pay for.

T5-HOs use less wattage than VHOs lighting and produce less heat while producing more light. In fact, some people have measured T5-HO PAR output to be superior to even MH lighting in certain circumstances.
 
Pufferpoison said:
also i just read an article that stated that HO lights are on their way out and hard to find and that VHO lights are the way to go? is this correct? are they talking about t5-ho?http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/lighting/l/aa031300c.htm
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The style of light that is "on its way out" is actually gone, the HO T12. HO T5s are much more efficient, in terms of light per watt, than VHO (which is also T12).

If you are going to do online research, I would skip that site. The information is superficial, not completely correct and out of date. There is no mention of PC or T5, and they use the watt per gallon rule way too heavily.

What should you buy? Personally, I'd consider running the tank as a FOWLR until you can get lights you really want. I would go with either more watts of T5 or halide, if you want to be able to keep most corals.
 
what's a good brand then, if not nova???
 
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