All T5 or T5/LED Hybrid?

[jmichaelh7]

T5 HYBRID

 

[Koigula]

Your charts are obsessed with spectrum. It will pop and shimmer fine and coverage will suffer. Coverage will be hot spots and weak spots but common sense so you buy three off them and hopefully raise atleast 9" over tank, so they behave like t5s and back to start of thread. Yet leds premium brands still charge more!

5 thing to plug in and 2 ballasts and 3 dc drivers to all break. Hang around a bit. It always does. Now what did you really gain?

A photon is a photon or does the combo of technology really have advantage? I would say possible with the globox effect haludes give, and possibly not with the spotlight effect leds give. You can find disasterous results in archives of gen1 ecotechs.

They were fixed by advanced users sharing a spectrum, and well raising up and burning brighter. Hmmm

 

[Bpb]

Parts wear out for all technologies. Quality t5 and halide ballasts will wear out eventually, and some lemons will be present. We have no guarantee of a lifetime of problem free operation from anything. Fans wear out on sun powers the same as on led fixtures.

Advantage t5 versus halides or leds on this end, because fluorescent ballasts are easy to swap and cheaper than led power supplies, and much easier to source than decent halide ballasts. I think the biggest area led manufacturers could improve is more of them offering commercial quality drivers and components without it further bloating an already gnarly price point.

 

[Koigula]

I have assurances from high level vendors, LEDs will never be sold as lenses, LED chips, driver and ballasts. The excuse will be the harsh environment above a tank, The reality is margins would plummet as parts are source and lamps are fixable

 

[A. grandis]

Oh well... the line of thought normally is to replace the halides and/or T5s every 12 months or so... Now the LED would be about 5 years... that's what we had some of the professionals recommending... BRS says T5s should be changed every 18 months...
I've heard people saying they have used same halide bulbs for 10+ years and their corals are still growing like weeds... Some T5 users change their bulbs every 2 years without any problem... Some say LEDs will last "forever" and they would change only when those LEDs would go out.
Every one is different...
The OP likes to go with a hybrid with some nice T5s and XHOs.
Just let him do what pleases him. I think that was what he wanted since the beginning.
Like I've always say... life is way too short!

 

[A. grandis]

Your charts are obsessed with spectrum. It will pop and shimmer fine and coverage will suffer. Coverage will be hot spots and weak spots but common sense so you buy three off them and hopefully raise atleast 9" over tank, so they behave like t5s and back to start of thread. Yet leds premium brands still charge more!

5 thing to plug in and 2 ballasts and 3 dc drivers to all break. Hang around a bit. It always does. Now what did you really gain?

A photon is a photon or does the combo of technology really have advantage? I would say possible with the globox effect haludes give, and possibly not with the spotlight effect leds give. You can find disasterous results in archives of gen1 ecotechs.

They were fixed by advanced users sharing a spectrum, and well raising up and burning brighter. Hmmm

"A photon is a photon or does the combo of technology really have advantage?"
Each technology will change results.
A photon isn't the same as another photon in terms of results, if the light doen't have the the same spectrum quality, distribution and delivery of those photons!

 

[A. grandis]

Either of the 3 most common reef light technologies will have weak points for each different type of fixture/application. You can have different results from a lot of different types of LED brands alone!!! Non of the LEDs will give me the results I can achieve with the halides the way I want!
My personal taste is for halides and T5s as the VERY BEST you can offer to shallow water organisms in any tank. That doesn't change the fact that thousands of people are more likely to love their LEDs for whatever reason they find. It's all about the results and personal preferences.
One can bring charts and whatever we can find to justify anything... the result is the ultimate key for the choice of light we want!
I am just glad that many others also choose halides/T5s and we can actually talk here about them, cause 10 years ago it would be treated like the ultimate sin. LOL!
OP: T5s with XHO it is!

 

[oreo54]

15 years ago you would be discussing t5 vs mh..

T5 is a lot more complex to set up because it needs more bulbs, more ballasts, more individual reflectors. People need to stop giving advise that T5 is latest and greatest. It's not!

https://forums.reefcentral.com/threads/the-myth-of-mh-being-hotter-than-t5s.676284/page-2.

T5 and SPS observation

Originally posted by IPT johnnybravo - if the corals are using the nutrients faster than I would also expect a faster growth rate. I do not know that to be true with T5 vs MH (not that it isn't, I just have no experience with MH and have not read much to support that). What worked for you...

forums.reefcentral.com

There's no reason why T5s would make for pale colors by themselves, other than there could also be some mild bleaching due to the uniform light, rather than a spot lighting dispertion from the MH.

You are assuming the sps color is a sole function of lighting - this is not true at all. There could be a couple explanations, one of which I mentioned in a previous post - N limitation. The second is that it could be light adaptation. With multiple T5s, you really can put a lot of different lamps with different spectrums that could cause some mild bleaching. Also T5 lighting is pretty uniform versus metal halide which are more spot lights...

Halides vs. T5's, here we go again, I am so over it when it relates to this hobby.

Funny huh ..

My person opinion is that due to the very, very patchy/peaky nature of a T5 's spectrum we are giving a rather unnatural light to the coral and they are coloring up differently due to that.

To bring it up to the present just substitute "led" in many different responses..

But that proves my point too. If a coral sits to the right of a halide it is primarily getting lit on the left side. So if you measure the par on the left side is very high with halide but if you measure the right it is much lower. Same thing if it is in front or behind the halide. Now with t-5 you can take any point around that coral and it will be equal.

 

[Viking_Reefing]

Well, I don’t think T5’s are superior as such for coral health but my main gripe with leds is that there’s nothing on the market that I find to be a good application for a standalone light. It’s either focused leds which will create a bunch of shadowing or leds with diffusers to give them that spread but also will take away most of the attractive shimmer (the same issue is of course also present with an all T5 setup).

As such I find that the hybrid method is the way to go. You get the best of both worlds.
The main issue with hybrids is that they generally look fairly janky with tons or cords etc.

 

[Koigula]

I have preference lately for just running t5s. I have halides only over a frag tank. They are radiums as that is what you can get easily.

My suspect that it is less important that most think. Sps might encrust in a month and take off in 7 months. Changing lights source seems to delay this success.

I sadly just buy online as last good reef store is gone here. There are some 90 min away but too far to kill a weekend.

Wwc has great healthy stuff grown under ecotechs. I would need to move tank to raise them up high like they do. It is just painful to spend 4k whereas 200 on 8 bulbs is no big deal if everything is paid for.

I have run t5s 2 years. I assure you the colors and pop fade. Replacing 2 year old t5s is big improvement in colors. It takes 20 whole minutes.

I also install a fan to increase evaporation and dose with avast kalk stirrer at night. I turn off osmolator at night too. It is cheap and works great.

I could move tank and spend 4k to be up to date. Should I or go to Mauii instead?

 

[Bpb]

I have preference lately for just running t5s. I have halides only over a frag tank. They are radiums as that is what you can get easily.

My suspect that it is less important that most think. Sps might encrust in a month and take off in 7 months. Changing lights source seems to delay this success.

I sadly just buy online as last good reef store is gone here. There are some 90 min away but too far to kill a weekend.

Wwc has great healthy stuff grown under ecotechs. I would need to move tank to raise them up high like they do. It is just painful to spend 4k whereas 200 on 8 bulbs is no big deal if everything is paid for.

I have run t5s 2 years. I assure you the colors and pop fade. Replacing 2 year old t5s is big improvement in colors. It takes 20 whole minutes.

I also install a fan to increase evaporation and dose with avast kalk stirrer at night. I turn off osmolator at night too. It is cheap and works great.

I could move tank and spend 4k to be up to date. Should I or go to Mauii instead?

I’d agree you’re right where you need to be. I’m a big supporter of purchasing reef gear for any reason other than “boredom”. Everything I use on my tank was to solve a specific problem with a previous product. If something is working and it’s setbacks are manageable, I see no reason to change for the sole reason of modernizing. That’s silly. I agree with keeping things running as is in your case. Switching to radions would only reduce your net worth

 

[Bpb]

I think part of the issue with replacement schedules lies in the reason we replace bulbs or panels. In many cases, t5 bulbs will be functioning properly at full intensity, and as they age, the spectral shift and intensity drop can be significant enough to drop beyond an ideal threshold of par or color balance. Similarly so with halide bulbs. They can lose the majority of their blue content. Do they still work? Absolutely! One of the most impressive growing sps tanks I’ve seen was using 5+ year old oddysea brand halide bulbs and t5 tubes. He never changed them from the day he got the fixture because “they were still super bright”. Granted those 20,000k bulbs and blue t5’s looked closer to 6500k-10000k by the time that tank came down. The growth remained explosive.

The led replacement schedule can be for a couple reasons. Either the hobbyist is bored, which I imagine is the most common, and silliest reason. But it happens. A dead fixture entirely, OR because of diode degradation.

Degradation is what “professionals” (salesmen) recommend to be a 5 year threshold. But if the product is being run at a reduced intensity, and still works as designed, and still provides adequate intensity levels, why on earth would someone replace them? Because Tullio says so? That doesn’t work for me. I hesitate to take the advice too closely of someone who’s very livelihood depends on me continuing to purchase their products on a regular schedule. It doesn’t make them all liars and thieves, but it does put a distinct asterisk on their advice. And that is ok. There is still great information to be had. It just takes critical thinking to interpret it and apply it to each of our individual experiences

 

[A. grandis]

I'm just happy to see people able to actually talk about what they like nowadays. That is the normal thing!

 

[A. grandis]

I think part of the issue with replacement schedules lies in the reason we replace bulbs or panels. In many cases, t5 bulbs will be functioning properly at full intensity, and as they age, the spectral shift and intensity drop can be significant enough to drop beyond an ideal threshold of par or color balance. Similarly so with halide bulbs. They can lose the majority of their blue content. Do they still work? Absolutely! One of the most impressive growing sps tanks I’ve seen was using 5+ year old oddysea brand halide bulbs and t5 tubes. He never changed them from the day he got the fixture because “they were still super bright”. Granted those 20,000k bulbs and blue t5’s looked closer to 6500k-10000k by the time that tank came down. The growth remained explosive.

The led replacement schedule can be for a couple reasons. Either the hobbyist is bored, which I imagine is the most common, and silliest reason. But it happens. A dead fixture entirely, OR because of diode degradation.

Degradation is what “professionals” (salesmen) recommend to be a 5 year threshold. But if the product is being run at a reduced intensity, and still works as designed, and still provides adequate intensity levels, why on earth would someone replace them? Because Tullio says so? That doesn’t work for me. I hesitate to take the advice too closely of someone who’s very livelihood depends on me continuing to purchase their products on a regular schedule. It doesn’t make them all liars and thieves, but it does put a distinct asterisk on their advice. And that is ok. There is still great information to be had. It just takes critical thinking to interpret it and apply it to each of our individual experiences

I have been thinking lately about the fact that when you have an old stock of a product you will desperately try to sell it! Right?! I agree with the skepticism on any info from that person or company when anyone tries to do that. Even Tullio! Could that be the reason why he tries to publish so many advantages in using metal halides over LEDs? Would that be his main reason to spend so much time in so many videos doing that? Let's assume it is indeed!!! I'm not being sarcastic here! I'm straight to the point as I see what some have tried to impose that here couple of times in the past. Not as a malicious action, but as a professional move. That still don't cancel all the adjectives and all the advantages metal halides offer over ANY other technology in terms of the actual light. The way light is produced, emitted and distributed.
We're to the point that personal preferences of RESULTS are starting to be respected and discussed in this forum. After so many years of frictions here and there in this forum, we've finally seen people publishing their preferences for T5s and halides without hesitation.
I think that is what Tullio has published in regards to the physical characteristics of light in general have contribute to that, it is a great thing. In other words, to narrow the market strictly to LEDs and dictate the rules by so many other LED companies as it has been for a while, using cheap arguments, isn't fair. If there is advantages or even preferences for such techonology it should be available as long as it is produced. I hope many here would agree with that! That is the only thing we still didn't see happening to this date. The market has been strongly condemning metal halides as they were in the past, when in reality we see almost every day someone going back to halides and reporting what they call "better results" compared to LEDs in their experiences an opinion.

Now... LED companies have been publishing things comparing their products to metal halides and T5s to sell their LEDs for so many years. Same thing! If Tullio is really doing that, BUT publishing real facts, with strong points, to sell his old stock, LED companies have been using market strategies to sell their products comparing to halides as their LEDs were "better". When "better" isn't even close to facts of results using halides, by experienced hobbyists.

Well... bottom line is that everyone must be desperate to sell their stuff. LOL! I trust in what Tullio says as facts because of experiences I had and because they explain what we see. The same can't be said about many things that various LED companies have been publishing for years about coverage, PAR comparison to justify electricity consumption and spectrum abilities and composition (UV), which follows application and have variables.

So many people have been using LEDs because of what this market is preaching and not because of their personal preferences, specially those who have been in this hobby for while. They miss the abilities of halides, but they are well resting on the "great info" passed by this LED market and feel great when their confirmation bias is well fed by the majority of users...
Influences everywhere...

 

[Koigula]

One take away from Tulio I saw on ReefBum channel is his advice for FULL spectrum even on refugiums. The red purple Kessil 360X is a bit of a mystery to me and use it on refugium as it still works. It does grow chaeto. I would love to still have option to run a 150 DE with reflector over this tank. It is just too much a hassle to source parts. I will likely replace it with a 250 reefbrite reflector rewired to a caoralvue ballast., as I have 4 or 5 still working.

There is no reason an LED chip can not be standardized. It likely will be in horticulture at some point. is 48v 3 amp drive 6 feet away from the reflector and chip.