The par output of t5 vs VHO.

[Workaholic]

Ok so i'm starting to get more serious about getting my hex tank up and going. Not only due to the complete lack of room for more corals in my nano but i'm nearly finished with my move to the lake tapps area SO! At this point I'm 99% sure i'm going to go with a standard 250w HQI retro halide with a 12k reeflux bulb for the main lighting of the tank, now for the supplimental actinic lighting i'm thinking of a couple different options. I have seen that there are 24" 75w VHO's out there and there are 24w 24" t5's. I have even toyed around with the idea of runnin my 4x65w hamiltion pc retro and getting creative with mounting those in the canopy. I most likely wont though as i'm not impressed with how long the bulbs are lasting (I've got MAYBE 4months on this set and already had 2 burn out on me). Anyways my question is this, does anyone know what the par comparisons are between t5 and vho of the same length? Due to the footprint requirements of my tank i'm limited to a 24" bulb which even then is pushing it. I may look into 18" t5's and running 4 of those due to space constraints. Is it worth 3x the power consumption of the VHO bulbs for the par output or for that matter is it even more than a comparable 24" t5?

Thanks,
Tom

 

[Workaholic]

Nobody?

Tom

 

[Skimmy]

i cant tell you anything about par compared to vho, but just do t5's...
vho is non reflected, and has lousey colors.
and get some supplemental LED's for xtra shimmer or blue and put them in your canopy.

 

[Workaholic]

hmmm, well I'll have to get exact measurements of the t5s and the halide reflector and compare them to the footprint of the hex and see how well it will fit. After further looking it appears that going with a HQI/t5 combo retro from hellolights is actually cheaper then going with VHO's by quite a bit. I think I will go with t5's and if its not enough blue i'll look into adding LED's to increase the supplemental blue.

Thanks,
Tom

 

[jag3534]

Hey Tom, have you seen the LED light strips at home depot? Majorly cheap! Jason wants to put some in our tanks too! Can't wait to see you get going on this guy!!

 

[Workaholic]

I haven't seen those LED strips actually. Honestly i'm still debating on even setting this tank up as a reef just cuz hex's are such a PIA to get the flow and lighting right. I may just keep my 20L and go uber nano with it. or figure something else out.

Tom