I think 1w of T5HO with individual reflectors is equal to something like 4w of T12, and 2w of CF.
T5 Ho hagen glo watts vs lumens?
- Thread starter lizziotti
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Ok sorry to bring this thread back from the dead but since my lighting is higher than I thought I decided to try some red plants they are growing fine but turned green. BROAD LEAF LUDWIGIA,ROTALA INDICA. Is my lighting not high enough or do I need more co2. I've been DIY with the hagen system which probably isn't enough. Or different bulbs? I currently have two 6700 over it. Thanks guys!
T5HO's do not put out 4x as much light as T12 bulbs. A super-quick search tells me that one F14T12 can do 650 initial lumens with 14w. I sincerely *wish* that an F15T5 could put out 2600 lumens; In-fact, an F28T5 that I just found puts out 2800 lumens. That's 46 lumens/watt for the T12, and 100 for the T5. A substantial difference, but keep reading.
What about T12VHO bulbs? An F48T12 VHO manages 6600 initial lumens; 137.5 lumens per watt. That's almost 40% more light than a comparable T5(F54T5 is good for about 5000...)
Huh?
That's right. It seems that, more than anything, T5's are designed to cut manufacturing cost and space-requirements, not your energy bill.
What about PAR watts? Since nobody provides the consumer with that information, my personaly opinion is that discussing the possiblity of one bulb having more PAR than another is pointless. Unless someone has the testing equipment to prove it, of course.
I have tested them with a quantum par meter also remember the T-12 VHO is 110 watts and the T-5 HO is 54 watts so that a 100% more watts being used with only 40% more lumens. T-5's on good ballasts with good reflectors come very close to 250 watt MH's with T-5's having a reading of about 175 par and 250 watt MH's having a par reading of about 200, PC's came in about 60 with VHO's slightly ahead of the PC's but not even close to T-5's. I can say that T-5's will penetrate about twice as deep as PC's when it comes to a reef tank with almost 3 times the par.
How many watts of T5 lighting did it take to come that close to 250 watts of MH? USHIO quotes far lower PAR values for their 250W MH bulbs, those are 10,000k. Do you have any other data on the bulbs you used during the test? The values could be different for different bulbs, no?(Which would explain why Ushio quotes the lower PAR values)
I wasn't thinking about the wattage of the T12VHO bulb when I posted that I guess
In the case of PC's, it's definitely a matter of saving space.
I wasn't thinking about the wattage of the T12VHO bulb when I posted that I guess
In the case of PC's, it's definitely a matter of saving space.
Bulbs, reflectors, ballasts, K rating and any combonation of them can effect the par values. I am not sure of any of those combos as I did the check at one of our LFS's here all bulbs were no more than 3 months old, the MH's were DE's When checking the T-5's it was a 6 bulb system so about 324 watts but as I moved the probe you could see a drop on the par as you moved between the bulbs just like MH's the farther you move away from rite underneath it the lower the par was and there was 500 watts of MH. I would think you could get T-5's to take up about the same amount of space as PC's. These readings were taken with lights about 12 inches above the water and about 15 inches below the water. To give you an example the par value of XM 20K bulbs is much higher than there 15K bulbs.
I do know that the T-5 bulbs well at least 3 of them are considered 1 of the top par monster bulbs and those were the GE Star Coat's 6.5K
