Triple strip NO versus PC Lighting?

75g

75g

Let's play "Spot the Banjo"
Jun 12, 2005
12
0
0
Toronto
Hi,

I'm kind of at an impasse over which lighting fixture to get my tank.
It's a 60 gallon 48x15x18 acrylic. The plan is for a planted community freshwater tank...loaches, livebearers, tetras, gouramis mostly with a few exotics like dwarf frogs, banjo cats, and amano shrimp...java moss and various herbivore resistant and salt tolerant plant types. The light fixture would run off a timer, 10 hours on, 14 hours off.

I'm tied between the AllGlass 48" triple T8 fixture and the AllGlass 2x55W PC 48" fixture. From what I can tell, the triple T8 with two T8 6500K/85CRI bulbs and one T8 5000K/86CRI would come out to about 8550 lumens, about 85% of a clear sunlit day. That should be enough for plant growth and good tank visibility right? I also like the versatility of three tubes...if the 5000K makes things to red, I can drop in a 6500K/85CRI in it's place. I also like the affordability of these tubes...usually in the $5 CAD range.

I'm not sure what the total lumens output of a twin 55W PC lamp would be. All I see is wattage, and wattage as far I can tell doesn't mean a thing when you are comparing different fluorescent tubes. The expense of PC tubes is also a major negative being in the $50 CAD range. Even if they last two to three times longer than T8s, it's still expensive.

Also can anyone tell me what types of bulbs (CRI/K) come with the AllGlass triple and PC fixtures?

Any advice would be appreciated. :)

-Andrew
 
Wattage is pretty much the same in each same sized fluorescent tube, but still, the most important thing is watts per gallon from what I"ve read. You would need at least two watts per gallon, and the triple tube light would give you just that (48" tubes are 40watts, so three of them would be 120 watts, which is two watts per gallon on a 60 gallon tank). Don't know about the wattage of the other lights, but if you can get more than two watts/gallon you can grow higher light plants...

Emily
 
75g
I have that fixture over my 48 x 18 x 18 and was surprised to find that the T-8 tubes are actually only 32 Watts. The bulbs are specially made for All-Glass and are labelled as such. There is no information on the bulbs as to CRI nor K, sorry.

FWIW, I like the way my tank looks. I did have an extra 20W fixture that I threw on top, too. I set it up about 4 months ago with cabomba, corkscew val, crypt, sword, banana plant, hygro, rotala and way too much giant val that's going to get ripped out and thrown away.


http://www.all-glass.com/products/hoods/tripletube.shtml

Brian
 
bxj124 said:
75g
I have that fixture over my 48 x 18 x 18 and was surprised to find that the T-8 tubes are actually only 32 Watts. The bulbs are specially made for All-Glass and are labelled as such. There is no information on the bulbs as to CRI nor K, sorry.

FWIW, I like the way my tank looks. I did have an extra 20W fixture that I threw on top, too. I set it up about 4 months ago with cabomba, corkscew val, crypt, sword, banana plant, hygro, rotala and way too much giant val that's going to get ripped out and thrown away.
Brian
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. I'll probably go with the triple. I also noticed that the T8 bulbs are 32W but their lumen output is marked as the same, if not more, than the 40W T12 tubes. Hence why I'm confused about the wattage/actual brightness relationship. :confused:

If it's not too much trouble, how much would you say that the triple fixture weighs? Slightly more than a double or a lot more? Can you also tell me the width and height of it? Is it an open face or is there an acrylic cover on the it?

-Andrew
 
Andrew,
No trouble at all.

The height is 3.75"
The width is 5.25"
I'm real bad at judging but I think the weight is about a third more than the double. I originally had a double but returned it for the triple.
It is an open face fixture.

Happy to help,
Brian
 
Picked up a triple strip

bxj124 said:
Andrew,
No trouble at all.

The height is 3.75"
The width is 5.25"
I'm real bad at judging but I think the weight is about a third more than the double. I originally had a double but returned it for the triple.
It is an open face fixture.

Happy to help,
Brian
Click to expand...

I decided to pick one up. Smaller than I thought it would be, pretty much the same height and width as the typical 2-bulb strip light. I found the All-Glass bulbs to be somewhat dimmer and bluer (I think they're 8000k) than the Philips T8s (Daylight Deluxe 6500k/85CRI/2800Lumens and Natural Sunshine 5000k/85CRI/2950Lumens) at the local Home Depot and decided to replace them with 2 Daylight Deluxe up front and 1 Natural Sunshine in the back for the big background plants. I'll use the All-Glass bulbs as stop-gaps if the Philips bulbs die. Looks good so far. :clap:

Thanks for your help,

Andrew
 
75g said:
Thanks for the info. I'll probably go with the triple. I also noticed that the T8 bulbs are 32W but their lumen output is marked as the same, if not more, than the 40W T12 tubes. Hence why I'm confused about the wattage/actual brightness relationship. :confused:
Click to expand...
Wattage is a measure of heat output. It just happens to be closely related to the light output of a light, and, thanks to lights being cheap to produce nowadays, most lights are similar if not exact when it comes to their light/heat output ratio due to the fact that similar/identical parts used to make them.

Just to make sense here: A 10w incandesant bulb will put out less light than 10w flourescent but the exact same amount of heat.
 
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All-Glass Tube Specs

bxj124 said:
75g
I have that fixture over my 48 x 18 x 18 and was surprised to find that the T-8 tubes are actually only 32 Watts. The bulbs are specially made for All-Glass and are labelled as such. There is no information on the bulbs as to CRI nor K, sorry.
Click to expand...

I contacted All-Glass by email and they got back to me the next day. The All-Glass tubes are 8000K full spectrum, 67CRI, and 2400 lumens. The CRI and light output are a bit low but what do you want for included tubes, right? :)

By comparison, the Philips Natural Sunshine (which is supposedly full spectrum) has 27% better CRI and 23% higher lumen output and a more typical daytime temperature of 5000K.

-Andrew
 
75g said:
I decided to pick one up. Smaller than I thought it would be, pretty much the same height and width as the typical 2-bulb strip light. I found the All-Glass bulbs to be somewhat dimmer and bluer (I think they're 8000k) than the Philips T8s (Daylight Deluxe 6500k/85CRI/2800Lumens and Natural Sunshine 5000k/85CRI/2950Lumens) at the local Home Depot and decided to replace them with 2 Daylight Deluxe up front and 1 Natural Sunshine in the back for the big background plants. I'll use the All-Glass bulbs as stop-gaps if the Philips bulbs die. Looks good so far. :clap:

Thanks for your help,

Andrew
Click to expand...

Andrew,
Time for me to get to Home Depot (My home #2) and pick out some new tubes and I think I'll copy your purchase :idea:

Now, thanks for your help!

Brian
 
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