Are T5 lights still superior to LED?

[rtparty]

How many T5 fixtures does it take to light a tank? One.

Usually one fixture with 8 “strip lights” known as bulbs

 

[Cichlid Dad]

Crystal ball viewing t5 lights. Begining I mid 2020's most new reefers told t5s are for beginners, not cost effective due to bulbs replacement needed every 8 months. LEDs can do everything t5s can do only better. So very few new people going with t5s. The entire globe is told the world is burning up because of man. We must mandate clean energy. Coal burning power plants are taken off line. Wind generators and solar power become the only source of new energy. This new energy can not keep up with the demand, so a radical shift to only energy efficient lighting is mandated starting in Europe. Rumors fly about t5 going away so everyone starts hording t5 bulbs. Eventually because the few people still running t5s already have 4 or 5 years of lights on hand, sales fall. Bulb manufacturer's look for ways to cut cost. Move there production to China closing there plants in Europe. Then after the market is flooded with Chinese t5s someone puts a light meter under their light and find out that they no longer have that beautiful uv to indigo light spectrum, but rather something that looks like a space needle spectrum found in cheep Amazon LEDS. People switch to LEDs leaving t5s death of t5

 

[nereefpat]

Attention, end users: Europe is banning fluorescent lighting

The phase-out is now in full swing, heading toward an August finale. LED vendor Glamox is among those calling for facility managers to wake up before it’s too late.

www.ledsmagazine.com

LEDs magazine dot com?

 

[Cichlid Dad]

LEDs magazine dot com?

Does that mean the article is not true?

 

[Troylee]

Does that mean the article is not true?

I’ve heard the same nonsense about neon because of the mercury and sure leds have replaced some but we’re still making plenty of neon for Las Vegas and it’s here to stay! They might ban run of the mill tubes but never specialty ones…

 

[Cichlid Dad]

I’ve heard the same nonsense about neon because of the mercury and sure leds have replaced some but we’re still making plenty of neon for Las Vegas and it’s here to stay! They might ban run of the mill tubes but never specialty ones…

I hope you and everyone else are correct it will only help me......

 

[BZOFIQ]

Crystal ball viewing t5 lights. Begining I mid 2020's most new reefers told t5s are for beginners, not cost effective due to bulbs replacement needed every 8 months. LEDs can do everything t5s can do only better. So very few new people going with t5s. The entire globe is told the world is burning up because of man. We must mandate clean energy. Coal burning power plants are taken off line. Wind generators and solar power become the only source of new energy. This new energy can not keep up with the demand, so a radical shift to only energy efficient lighting is mandated starting in Europe. Rumors fly about t5 going away so everyone starts hording t5 bulbs. Eventually because the few people still running t5s already have 4 or 5 years of lights on hand, sales fall. Bulb manufacturer's look for ways to cut cost. Move there production to China closing there plants in Europe. Then after the market is flooded with Chinese t5s someone puts a light meter under their light and find out that they no longer have that beautiful uv to indigo light spectrum, but rather something that looks like a space needle spectrum found in cheep Amazon LEDS. People switch to LEDs leaving t5s death of t5

What?

 

[oreo54]

I’ve heard the same nonsense about neon because of the mercury and sure leds have replaced some but we’re still making plenty of neon for Las Vegas and it’s here to stay! They might ban run of the mill tubes but never specialty ones…

Well here is the " catch". Those specialty bulbs are special because there is no equivalent and/or economic way to replace them.
Afaict "color" does not figure into this.
Well UV lamps if you stretch the def. of color
The fragility and mess if broken will probably factor into if China will bother with them when "commercial" demand dies down more

Sept. should give some clarity to the muddiness ATM.


Which is why I figure mh will last longer than " specialty" t5's .
UV, high power density, certain industries. ect. makes them " special".

Took a long time to replace the crt.

 

[mushroom_dude]

And then the fight started...

im in the same boat, can't decide weather to go t5, led or hybrid.
but here we are lol

 

[t5Nitro]

I ran strictly orphek LEDs and the tank flourished after switching the main fixture out for an ATI 8 bulb T5 unit. Now I run halides until I can't get bulbs.

 

[ThaBeast]

I had halides on my tanks for a long time And liked them but didn’t learn stability was key for quite sometime so didn’t have spectacular growth with halide. I had an 8 lamp sfiligoi on my 160 and loved it. I put 2 10x54W ATI Powermodules on my 400 and cooked myself out of my own office. I’ve been led ever since.

 

[Shon]

I can't see specialty bulbs that have demand going anywhere. They still make t12 tanning bed bulbs.

 

[Cichlid Dad]

I can't see specialty bulbs that have demand going anywhere. They still make t12 tanning bed bulbs.

Good point

 

[ronnie]

I ran a radion xr15 Pro for 4 months and it was good. Way better than LEDs were 10-15 years ago. But it was just flat to me. Added a 4 bulb aquatic life fixture and it had really evened out the color spread and pushes away the shadowing issues. I used to run 8 and 12 bulb T5 fixtures. So I knew it would bring some pop. I think T5/LED gives us the best of both worlds.

 

[LadAShark]

the #1 thing that differentiates the two is efficiency, and everyone goes by the benchmarks, which suggest that LED's produce twice as much lumens per watt... which actually doesn't hold true the shorter the wavelength of light. Royal blue leds and beyond have a fraction of the lumens per watt that people are using as benchmarks. So the run up is actually a lot closer than people think.

I think it really just comes down to spread vs appearance. Led's are simply much harder to make shine as diffusely as t5's, while t5's do a better job preventing shading and also have emit a wider peak of wavelengths. I'd say the two are sidegrades. T5's for growth, led's for appearance, but t5's also look nice, and led's also grow coral well.

 

[oreo54]

I can't see specialty bulbs that have demand going anywhere. They still make t12 tanning bed bulbs.

Actually that is part of my point above
This is the output of the uv part:

Most professional indoor tanning units emit about 95 percent UVA and 5 percent UVB in regulated dosages similar to summer sun

That 5% is about 18% of the bulb.


ATM there are no current led replacements that are err " economical". A classic specialty bulb.

This is much different animal from say an ati blue plus bulb.

Please note I have no idea what the bulb capitalists will do in the future.
Anything is pure speculation .

One thing is almost certain though. If the " big users" go away the remaining bulbs will most likely increase in price.

I have a feeling that there are more tanning bed tubes used per year than aquarium ones. Not to mention most aquarium bulbs are not t12.

Looks like 100w tanning bed bulbs are about $30 each.

 

[LadAShark]

Actually that is part of my point above
This is the output of the uv part:

That 5% is about 18% of the bulb.


ATM there are no current led replacements that are err " economical". A classic specialty bulb.

This is much different animal from say an ati blue plus bulb.

Please note I have no idea what the bulb capitalists will do in the future.
Anything is pure speculation .

One thing is almost certain though. If the " big users" go away the remaining bulbs will most likely increase in price.

I have a feeling that there are more tanning bed tubes used per year than aquarium ones. Not to mention most aquarium bulbs are not t12.

Looks like 100w tanning bed bulbs are about $30 each.

They couldn't even discontinue metal halides or sodium vapor lamps because metal halides still are the best way to light things like warehouses (like costco uses them, for example), and sodium vapor lamps last the longest so are used for street lights.


There are a handful of reasons why there's a push for LED's:
1) just around the white spectrum or so, led's waste the least heat % wise per lumen. For the same watt, that white-slightly blue led outputs potentially double or more what a T5 does
2) human beings see colors closer to green as brighter, and are less sensitive the redder or bluer things get. DRAMATICALLY so, so it takes far less light to light an area, and less power if you're producing a narrower band of light, wasting less power producing wavelengths we're not sensitive to
3) LED production coincides with a lot of the work being done into computing, while T5 lighting efficiency is likely tapped as far as is physically or at least reasonably feasibly possible. The more people using LED's, the faster the advancement across the board.
4) disposal and recycling of t5's is a huge challenge relative to LED's

Ultimately, however, there is $ on the line to keep T5's around for their niches, and it's not reasonable or feasibly to try to replace them where their diffuse, but even spread and wider spectrum is valuable.

 

[oreo54]

Dup.

 

[oreo54]

the #1 thing that differentiates the two is efficiency, and everyone goes by the benchmarks, which suggest that LED's produce twice as much lumens per watt... which actually doesn't hold true the shorter the wavelength of light. Royal blue leds and beyond have a fraction of the lumens per watt that people are using as benchmarks. So the run up is actually a lot closer than people think.

I think it really just comes down to spread vs appearance. Led's are simply much harder to make shine as diffusely as t5's, while t5's do a better job preventing shading and also have emit a wider peak of wavelengths. I'd say the two are sidegrades. T5's for growth, led's for appearance, but t5's also look nice, and led's also grow coral well.

Actually current l/w for quality low cri white LEDs is around 140- ish.
Practically more in the 110's
White t5's are around 80- 90ish.

But that is only 1/2 the story.
The delivery of those lumens is the other 1/2.
LEDs with 120-90 degree delivery have an advantage ( and obvious disadvantage ) over the 360 degree delivery with even the best of the reflectors.
.
Historically, with the seeming only exception with reef lighting, is that to get the same par in a targeted area one can use 1/2 the wattage of t5's.
The added efficacy and narrower spread of LEDs create the advantage.
Orchid growers, pot growers, fw aquariums ( maybe just cheaper fixtures) ect. have documented this for years.

You can't measure blue leds with lumens.
You need to use par.
The " math" used to measure lumens penalized both red and blue end of the spectrum.
It is heavily weighted in the green part of the spectrum.

 

[seanarino]

I like T5 because I've noticed that T5 seem to have a whiter look overall (i.e. white, but obviously not "doctor's office white" vs. LED which can be literally *pure blue* if wanted to be. I don't even think actinic bulbs are pure blue the same way LEDs are. I can't do the pure blue lighting because it's physically painful for me, but I think after I get a 6-bulb setup and if it's white enough, I may be able to add LED strips in the "correct" blue range.