"T5" lights? Tek light fixtures? Nova ex.? Catalina? Need some help

NeonFlux

NeonFlux

Water agent
Oct 16, 2005
2,293
3
38
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Los Angeles, California
Real Name
William
♠ I have been using Coralife's compact fluorescent light fixtures for years and years(I have 4 WPG currently), they are getting really old now (about 2 year old bulbs, and such that still work), and I feel that it may be time to finally "upgrade" my lights. What's the big difference between compact florescent and T5's? I never really understood the technology. I have been searching around here and there and found these lights...I am willing to spend big $ for some good, durable lights for my extreme planted tanks, I have a lot of aquatic plants that require high light, so indeed, I need high lights no doubt...

What do you recommend...?

48" Nova's Extreme T5 lights

48" Catalina's BLACK SOLAR T5 HO - 4 X 54W

48" Tek Light T5 Fluorescent Aquarium Lighting 4ft 4 bulb 216W What lights do you recommend for the Tek fixture? Midday lights with 6K or mixing it up with aquablue? What's good? •_•


Overall, which one do you recommend for my high tech planted 60 gallon tank with pressurized co2?
 
well T5-HO put out more light because the bulb is smaller and more light can be reflected down into the tanks that why when you get a T5 system you need indabidual relfects. i acually have a fishneedit light and while i like it it a cheap alternative to the ones you posted and the reflectors aren't that great. i also have a 3' version the the Tek lights i'm using for hydroponics and i really really like it and it puts out alot of light and really recommended it if you have the money, cant speak on the other fixtures.

also or bulbs i would use midday with the 6k the blue probably wont do anything for you plants
 
To give a real world example of the difference consider this. The store I work at started replacing 4 x 55W PC fixtures with 2 x 54W T5HO units. We replaced the lights on 1/2 the tanks in one system to start, and those tanks were as brightly lit as the rest of the system. Admittedly the PC bulbs were 6-7 mos old, but still we're talking 1/2 the wattage. Additionally the system temp dropped 2 degrees. Doesn't take much to figure how vastly superior the T5s are.
 
I am a huge advocate of Catalina fixtures because they are very high quality fixtures but your not just paying an extra $100 for the brand name. They feature the same single reflectors as other big brands and their bulbs are I would say just as good as coralife and current from my experience. Look for a seller on ebay called mango277, he usually sells brand new catalina fixtures for less than the website has them. Ive seen them listed for as low as $140 for the 4*54watt and you can customize any bulb options you want with them. Just add a splash guard for like $10 and they usually come with mounting legs.

The main difference to me with PCs and HOT5s is that T5s are more efficient, they run cooler and you get more useable light per watt in your aquarium. Over the long haul they are cheaper to run as their bulbs dont start to loose efficiency until they are 10-12months old instead of PCs bulbs which do after 6-8months. For a planted tank either option is perfectly fine, PCs do very well for even high light planted tanks.

I run a 108watt catalina hoT5 and a 130watt coralife PC on my 100G planted. The 108watt T5 is just as bright as the Coralife visually. Plus it is much cooler to the touch at the end of the day than the PC.
 
Wow, thanks for all the responses, folks. coma, I'll try and search for some in ebay. It looks like catalina is very popular. I might consider getting one.

Any more input guys?

Thanks
 
I just bought a Aquatic Life T5 system for my 180 and love it. It come with one plug a programable timer that runs 3 different sets of lights(4-10000k bulbs,4 6700k bulbs and 16 blue LEDs. ALso came with 8 sets of 2 blue LEDs and indivdual reflectors.
 
NeonFlux said:
Wow, thanks for all the responses, folks. coma, I'll try and search for some in ebay. It looks like catalina is very popular. I might consider getting one.

Any more input guys?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Here's a tank, 70 Gal with 2x 54 W lights:

resized70galADAwith1.5wgal.jpg


Are you sure you want more than 2 x 54W?

Regards,
Tom Barr
 
I found a light now thanks to that catalina website LoL woot! Wish my tank looked even close to the one on the bottom
 
Holy planted tank! 2 wpg, tom? Maybe 3x54 is really all I need then. Talk about saving energy... Thanks for the visual aidin', Mr. Barr :)

-William
 
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