Where to buy 48” T5 bulbs

Booth2010

Registered Member
Nov 15, 2020
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I cannot find regular aquarium 48” T5 bulbs anywhere. Mainly looking for ones that’ll make fish colors pop, or even for plants. I can find actinic and blues for reef tanks but none for freshwater setups. All petco and Petsmart have now are T8. Am I SOL and just need to buy a cheap LED fixture off Amazon? Kinda looks like T5 is old news now.
 
You can get them, but they are far more expensive now than they were, because everyone looking to save money bought cheap LED fixtures from China.

All our current lights are LED these days, but there are folks who prefer flourescent because of the color reproduction (very much the minority though)

If nothing else, you need to determine if you need TO or T5HO bulbs... It should have said the wattage on the old ones, if not the fixture
 
T-5 bulbs are not 48 inch, they're a bit shorter but I don't recall the exact length (44"? 45"?). T-8 & T-12 are 48 inch. I think you need to measure your bulbs & search for a slightly different size bulb. The fixture may be 48" but T-5s are not...it should say on the bulbs what size they are...also the wattage to see if they are NO (normal output) or HO (high output), the watts will tell which kind.
 
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