Considering Hamilton Cebu Sun MH/T5 combo.Please share your thoughts/experiences.

[A. grandis]

For sure - that was the hope @oreo5457 ! I didn't want to add another 2 XR15's to try and get the PAR that I wanted, and I like MH/T5 anyway so this got me to where I needed to be! Now I just need to fine tune the Kelvin and adjustment period.

The beauty of MH is that you will be able to offer much more PAR in a safe way, if you want/need, and the great wide constant spectrum, allowing a more natural growth and amazing photon distribution and delivery. Your corals will do much better under the qualities of halides!!!! T5s will allow a nice balanced photoperiod and add some pop, specially using ATI Blue Plus bulbs. Enjoy!

 

[sgrosenb]

The beauty of MH is that you will be able to offer much more PAR in a safe way, if you want/need, and the great wide constant spectrum, allowing a more natural growth and amazing photon distribution and delivery. Your corals will do much better under the qualities of halides!!!! T5s will allow a nice balanced photoperiod and add some pop, specially using ATI Blue Plus bulbs. Enjoy!

Awesome thanks @A. grandis ! I was planning on running T5 for about 12 hours, and then MH 6 hours once the corals acclimate. Is it OK to run T5's during the 6 hour MH period as well? So T5's from 7am-7pm (on 12 hours straight) and then MH on from 10am-4pm. Sound about right?

 

[A. grandis]

Awesome thanks @A. grandis ! I was planning on running T5 for about 12 hours, and then MH 6 hours once the corals acclimate. Is it OK to run T5's during the 6 hour MH period as well? So T5's from 7am-7pm (on 12 hours straight) and then MH on from 10am-4pm. Sound about right?

Yes, perfectly fine to run T5s while the halides are ON. That is the way I do here.
But if you want to turn the T5s OFF while halides are ON, no problem, you will save some electricity. It's the acclimation to the lights/photoperiod what's more important. Just choose what you want a stick with it. Your SPS will look wonderful!

 

[sgrosenb]

Understood thanks! Any thoughts on a lunar LED option to supplement the Cebu Sun? I don't like just having the lights completely off after 12 hours of T5... I'd like to get some lunar LED's to give a faint blue light during the evening. Any thoughts? The Cebu Sun doesn't really have a great spot to put any LED's on it that I can see, but I'm sure someone has done it!

 

[A. grandis]

Understood thanks! Any thoughts on a lunar LED option to supplement the Cebu Sun? I don't like just having the lights completely off after 12 hours of T5... I'd like to get some lunar LED's to give a faint blue light during the evening. Any thoughts? The Cebu Sun doesn't really have a great spot to put any LED's on it that I can see, but I'm sure someone has done it!

Best bet is to open a "lunar LED" thread, so the LED people could chime in.
I still use my lunar system from the 90s with an incandescent 15W bulb.

 

[sgrosenb]

Hey all - just an update here. Dave a Hamilton Technologies was extremely helpful - I told him that the 14k were a bit too white for me, and so he sent me the 20k to replace them. I now have 3x 250W 20k MH's and 4x Blue+ T5's. To me, this is the absolute best lighting combo out there. I'm sure that's a hotly debated topic, but to my eyes, this is the pinnacle (or I could be convinced that actinic instead of Blue+ would be good too). Thank you all for your help. I'll update in a month or two with any change in growth for my SPS corals!

-Scott

 

[Mark75g]

i have a 175gallon bow front that i run a mh/t5 combo light on. It was called maristar at the time but is similar to what your looking at. I run 3 250w 14k phenix bulbs with 2 54w Blue plus and 2 54w Coral plus ATI T's . I run T5 for 1 hour and then the mh comes on for 7hour with leaving the t5 on and then the mh shuts down and the t5 runs for another hour after. Coral are growing great. Just had a crash about a year ago so the coral in the pick have all started from frags.

 

[A. grandis]

Hey all - just an update here. Dave a Hamilton Technologies was extremely helpful - I told him that the 14k were a bit too white for me, and so he sent me the 20k to replace them. I now have 3x 250W 20k MH's and 4x Blue+ T5's. To me, this is the absolute best lighting combo out there. I'm sure that's a hotly debated topic, but to my eyes, this is the pinnacle (or I could be convinced that actinic instead of Blue+ would be good too). Thank you all for your help. I'll update in a month or two with any change in growth for my SPS corals!

-Scott

ATI Blue Plus has more PAR and wider spectrum than True Actinic. They have different purposes for the combo. You can mix them if you want. I had great results adding one ATI True Actinics to a 6 bulb combo. Great bulb!
Halides aren't only good to your eyes. They are the best for the corals too!
Cheers!