Should I ditch my T5s?

[Steven Garland]

I think that’s the problem - My T5 fixture is from Sunlight supply and has no fans so it probably runs too hot, causing the ballasts to burn out. The other problem is the bulbs are a PITA to replace. The polycarbonate lens is a pain to remove, and the reflectors extend all the way to the end of the bulbs so I can’t get my fingers in to turn the bulbs. All this means I need to completely take the fixture off down and Lay it on the floor to replace the bulbs.

The other problem is I’m having trouble sourcing a replacement ballast for my lights so I may just replace them anyway.

@oreo5457 - those Quanta lights look amazing. Do you get much shimmer from them? I’m strongly considering getting an aquatic life dimmable T5 hybrid fixture and putting a couple of the Quanta strips in the middle but I’m worried it will be too much par and I’d like to get a bit of shimmer.

How many bulbs is it (4,6,8) ? You would always just get 2 ATI replacement fans and wire them into a 12v wall wart plug or a tank mouny fan and face it up at the bottom of the fixture to push some heat away.

I am kinda having the same issue because the end caps on my Tek light are super old and I habe to wiggle the bulbs to get them to fire up majority of the time.

Depending of how many switches your fixture has you can always replace 2 bulbs with 2 led bars and just remove the bulbs and mount the bars in place of them.

 

[Sleepydoc]

How many bulbs is it (4,6,8) ? You would always just get 2 ATI replacement fans and wire them into a 12v wall wart plug or a tank mouny fan and face it up at the bottom of the fixture to push some heat away.

I am kinda having the same issue because the end caps on my Tek light are super old and I habe to wiggle the bulbs to get them to fire up majority of the time.

Depending of how many switches your fixture has you can always replace 2 bulbs with 2 led bars and just remove the bulbs and mount the bars in place of them.

It’s a 6 bulb fixture. I could also get some 120V AC computer fans but at this point I think I’d rather just replace the fixture.

The other thing going through my mind is whether T5s are going to be sun-setted and no longer available, in which case a hybrid fixture is kind of pointless, too. Giesemann is a German company and I can see the EU banning fluorescent bulbs because of the mercury. ATI is American so they’ll probably be around a bit longer. Maybe I’m just being paranoid, too.

 

[oreo54]

It’s a 6 bulb fixture. I could also get some 120V AC computer fans but at this point I think I’d rather just replace the fixture.

The other thing going through my mind is whether T5s are going to be sun-setted and no longer available, in which case a hybrid fixture is kind of pointless, too. Giesemann is a German company and I can see the EU banning fluorescent bulbs because of the mercury. ATI is American so they’ll probably be around a bit longer. Maybe I’m just being paranoid, too.

Btw went though the 25 pages..no data about the bars.

 

[Acroporaguy]

Ballasts should be lasting you much longer, I guess it's because your fixture is not cooled. If it was an ATI sunpower or something like that, I'd say keep the T5. If you foresee your fixture blowing ballasts every few years, switch to LED. I will say, T5 is much better than LED in my opinion and anecdotal experience. T5s being phased out is just a bunch of talk from the LED folks. They'd love to see them go, so they can sell you cheap LEDs made in china...

 

[Sleepydoc]

Btw went though the 25 pages..no data about the bars.

Yeah - I’ve seen a lot of people praising them but hard data on PAR values is hard to find. There’s some on the web site but it’s difficult to interpret - they don’t say how high The lights are or how deep they’re taking the measurements. He also has ‘recommendations’ for a 24” tank but doesn’t give the depth.

The two drawbacks I can see from these lights are that they’re not dimmable, meaning the only way to adjust PAR is by adjusting the height, and that each light has a separate cord, so you’d have 4-6 cords coming down from your tank.

I think I may go ahead and order one to see how I like it.

 

[Steven Garland]

I would much rather spend a few bucks on fans,then couple hundred on a few fixture.

I honestly wouldn't worry about the ban on bulbs for right now. There was a HUGE debate about this a few months ago. I run Giesemann t5 bulbs as well though. They'll be im stock for awhile until everyone runs out,if they do ban them.

 

[Sleepydoc]

I would much rather spend a few bucks on fans,then couple hundred on a few fixture.

I honestly wouldn't worry about the ban on bulbs for right now. There was a HUGE debate about this a few months ago. I run Giesemann t5 bulbs as well though. They'll be im stock for awhile until everyone runs out, if they do ban them.

Yeah, that would almost certainly be cheaper but I'd also end up having to cut up the case to my lights and having fans bolted to the top so it wouldn't look very good, either. Since I'm also having a hard time sourcing the replacement ballast I'd end up getting the ATI ballasts from BRS. I know I can make them work but I'd also have to do more modifications of my light to get them to fit. In the end I think I'd rather just get a new light at this point.

Agree on the bulbs. I think we're 'safe' for the next several years, and in the worst case there are LED strips you can put in to replace the bulbs (or simply retrofit an LED strip.)

My main complaint about T5s is replacing and disposing of the bulbs. As I said above, my fixture makes replacement unnecessarily difficult and properly disposing of the bulbs is a bit of a hassle as well. I'm just trying to decide if those drawbacks are negated by the benefits.

 

[jmichaelh7]

+1 for keeping them
+2 running hybrid

 

[jerl77]

Love my t5
Been running them for 10 years plus

 

[HBtank]

I think the biggest issue with LEDs right now is coverage. In many ways current designs took a step back into the disadvantages of halides. Only certain manufacturers are trending back into less of the “puck” type design, and those are expensive.

It is very costly to replicate the coverage of T5s with LEDs. I would ride them out a little longer if you can.

 

[Steven Garland]

I get what you are saying. Whatever works for you honestly. I vote for hybrid:

 

[Sleepydoc]

Yeah - I’ve seen a lot of people praising them but hard data on PAR values is hard to find. There’s some on the web site but it’s difficult to interpret - they don’t say how high The lights are or how deep they’re taking the measurements. He also has ‘recommendations’ for a 24” tank but doesn’t give the depth.

The two drawbacks I can see from these lights are that they’re not dimmable, meaning the only way to adjust PAR is by adjusting the height, and that each light has a separate cord, so you’d have 4-6 cords coming down from your tank.

I think I may go ahead and order one to see how I like it.

I sent an email to Quantareef asking about the PAR values they have listed on their site and got a response the next day:

"PAR values for for lights 11" above the water and these were measured at 13" deep. I have 5 of my quanta pro's over my 6'x20"x 28" (LxHxW) and I am getting around 400-500 PAR over the tank and growing SPS like crazy."

(For my tank he recommended 3 light bars for LPS, 4 for SPS.)

Love my t5
Been running them for 10 years plus

Is that a supplemental LED bar you have on the front of your T5 fixture?

 

[oreo54]

I sent an email to Quantareef asking about the PAR values they have listed on their site and got a response the next day:

"PAR values for for lights 11" above the water and these were measured at 13" deep. I have 5 of my quanta pro's over my 6'x20"x 28" (LxHxW) and I am getting around 400-500 PAR over the tank and growing SPS like crazy."

(For my tank he recommended 3 light bars for LPS, 4 for SPS.)

Par numbers are generated by photons not the type of light
Each tech works, even going back to hps or 4000- 6500k mh's.

Quanta can be dimmed with a driver swap. Generally though the issue is for some odd reason ( is it?) your replacement driver will not be an "exact" match and almost inevitably involves an increase or decrease in drive current.


4' Quanta pro has 80 leds @72 watts..
Looks like the driver is 40-65V DC 1150mA which would translate into 4 parallel strings each getting 287.5mA (60v-ish)
Want to run 2 bars per driver, just double that..
Actually it is easier finding a driver for 2 in parallel than 1 single..
CAUTION: Need to know the real voltage for a single light.
Assumption here based on the driver for a 4' light being as above and driving 4 strings of 20 diodes at at least 3v each =60V
Below driver will run 2 in parallel and 262.5 mA each set of 20
126W total..LOSS of 18W (or 9w per bar)

HLG-240H-C2100◯

90

305

59V~119V

2100mA

"B" or"AB" type for dimming.
Sadly adds $68.90 for a set of bars... but you get pot 10v PWM, or 1-10v analog dimming.

HLG-C Series Constant Current LED Driver from Mean Well

You can verify with Quanta if that driver works. Only issue I can see is if the bar voltage is <59V.
OR the vid I pulled the driver stats is wrong.


With 20 blues/whites chance is a bit slim
Would need to average below 2.95V each.. That is possible.
Of course you now have 4 extra drivers but only 2 plugs for 4 bars..


Addendum to the vid above. An underwater par meter will not be accurate in air.
Fortunately it looks like he used the old black sensor.
Par readings will be like only 8% too high.
Newer sensors the error is much greater. 32% too high.
This assumes you can't or didn't shut off the underwater correction factor.

 

[Sleepydoc]

ok - just an update here- I ordered a single 4' Quanta Pro Reef Crest Daylight fixture to try. My thought being I could either get more Quanta Pros to do everything LED or I could use it in the middle of a hybrid fixture.

My General impressions of the light match everyone else's - solid and well constructed.

The light itself is a bit more blue-green than I was expecting. I should probably have gotten the Tropic sun rather than the reef crest daylight model. It's hard to give an accurate impression but I attached a picture that was as close as I could get with my phone. Ignore the color banding you see at the top of the photo - it was not visible to my eye.

As far as light output goes they seem to put out a ton of light. I borrowed a PAR meter from my LFS. At 12" below the surface my 6 bulb T5 fixture put out the following numbers:

180	270	270	250	210
220	300	290	270	240
200	230	240	240	230

The Single Quanta Pro Reef Crest Daylight Fixture put out

80	125	125	120	100
140	160	140	165	165
45	60	55	65	50

Both Fixtures were mounted 7.25" over the water. Since it was a single fixture it didn't spread front to back as well as the larger T5 did but it still put out a ton of light for being a single fixture.

The LEDs on the Quanta light bars are spaced fairly close together and I really didn't detect any significant shimmer or disco effect from the single light bar when I had it up.

So now I need to decide whether to do the hybrid or just get some more Quantas. The Quantas put out a ton of light so 3 or 4 would easily be more light than my current T5 fixture. The downsides/drawbacks of the Quanta lights that I can think of are:

• Not dimmable
• It's not a single, unified fixture meaning it's not quite as neat since I'd have to route a wire for each individual light bar.
• No shimmer

Advantages:

• Excellent value
• Even, well diffused light
• The bars come with mounting hardware and have a mounting groove that make it easy to mount them together.
• No shimmer

 

[spsick]

No shimmer from an LED strip? Does it have a diffuser or something I’m not seeing? Those look like pretty decent numbers and really the ice white look that most people want out of their “full spectrum“ aka AB+

 

[oreo54]

No shimmer from an LED strip? Does it have a diffuser or something I’m not seeing? Those look like pretty decent numbers and really the ice white look that most people want out of their “full spectrum“ aka AB+

IF there is no surface movement even Kessils aren't going to shimmer..
I agree that having an led light bar not shimmer is unusual. Even diffusers aren't perfect.

 

[Sleepydoc]

IF there is no surface movement even Kessils aren't going to shimmer..
I agree that having an led light bar not shimmer is unusual. Even diffusers aren't perfect.

Now that you mention it, I had the power heads and return pump turned off when taking the PAR readings to minimize the variations d/t surface ripples. I assumed the lack of shimmer was because the LEDs were spaced close enough together but I’ll have to try it again with the pumps on.

I’m planning on ordering a couple more of the Quanta lights but the Meso Blue models (the ones that approximate the blue plus bulbs) are backordered so I’ve been waiting.

 

[Sleepydoc]

Ok - I held the Quanta light over my tank this morning before the T5s came on and there was definitely shimmer. I don't know if it would make any difference with 3 or 4 vs a single light but it was clearly the lack of surface agitation that was deceiving me.