I made a mistake...

cephei

AC Members
Nov 10, 2008
137
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Man I feel like an idiot right now... I have a juwel Rio 240 that has T8 fluorescents in it at the moment and I was advised to upgrade to T5 so I bought a T5 bulb online thinking it was just a more powerful bulb that would fit in the existing connection..

It didnt help that the website I bought it from said that these bulbs 'fit juwel aquaria' so anyway got the bulb today and the connection on the bulb is half the size of the T8 and obviously wont fit.. I didnt realise when people said I should get T5 bulbs I had to upgrade mt whole hood unit too..

Can anyone advise me what to do now?

cheers :rant2:
 
Is this a regular T5 or T5HO or T5VHO? You could always get a retrofit kit and retrofit your hood.

To be honest I havent a clue what it is.. Alli i know is I have a T8 hood and two T5 bulbs that wont fit.. Whats a retrofit kit? I have seens some T8 - T5 conversion kits but I didnt think they would be water tight etc or suitable for an aquarium...??
 
Man I feel like an idiot right now... I have a juwel Rio 240 that has T8 fluorescents in it at the moment and I was advised to upgrade to T5 so I bought a T5 bulb online thinking it was just a more powerful bulb that would fit in the existing connection..

It didnt help that the website I bought it from said that these bulbs 'fit juwel aquaria' so anyway got the bulb today and the connection on the bulb is half the size of the T8 and obviously wont fit.. I didnt realise when people said I should get T5 bulbs I had to upgrade mt whole hood unit too..

Can anyone advise me what to do now?

cheers :rant2:
Why do you need to upgrade the lighting?
Can you return the bulbs?
 
Why do you need to upgrade the lighting?
Can you return the bulbs?

I can return the bulbs.. I was advised to upgrade to T5 though as I have a 64G tank and I only have 76W of light at the moment so im way of the 2 watts per gallon rule..
 
while I agree you are probably lower in the way of light, you might/should be able to grow low light plants easily.

And for your info, this whole WPG "rule" is frankly waaaay overrated, and I refuse to use it now. My reasoning can be found in my blog post.

To get more light you WILL have to retrofit something, you cannot get more powerful bulbs for your existing fixture, You could go the ODNO route, which would increase light output, but the downside is that it would also raise the power consumption and decrease bulb life to as low as 6 months.
 
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