Malum Argenteum
Community Member
Currently, my 90g mixed reef (LPS, a couple leathers, RBTAs, plating montis) runs (4) T5HOs (two Blue Plus, an Aquablue Special, and a Coral Plus) in individual Sunblaster fixtures mounted in a canopy. It works great, though makes a lot of heat and a big pile of lamps to be recycled. I'd like to ease into a hybrid setup by adding an LED or two and remove two of the T5s.
I want to make the change to reduce energy consumption and at least break even on long-term costs; I'm not looking to change the actual performance of the lights much. I want to ease into a hybrid instead of going full LED because I'm pretty conservative about changing things on the tank (it ran overdriven NO T8s until about five years ago, to give you an idea of how conservative
), and because it would be easy to do given the individual T5 fixtures.
Reading threads, it seems hybrid systems tend to be some pretty standard LED (often a puck style) augmented by a pair of actinic T5HO. I'm not looking for any more blue spectrum than I already have, so I'm not sure that's the best idea for me (maybe it is and I just don't know it). I am familiar with AI Primes -- I currently own a FW model (gen previous to the current one, I think) that is on a frog vivarium, and used to own a first gen SW model (I didn't like it, and sold it -- I thought the performance was pretty poor).
I recently got a pair of Fluval Plant 3.0 fixtures for my FW planted tank, and I like them so far -- two of them are more powerful than the 4x T5HO I had on the planted tank previously. But I don't see the Fluval units getting a lot of love here.
I checked out the Orphek Light bars. A pretty different sort of light -- not controllable at all, it looks like. I'm not totally on board with the direct from China approach. All worth it because of the performance per dollar, maybe?
Reef Bright strips look pretty expensive for what they are -- just blue, or just blue and white. They'd need some work to find a T5 lamp that fills in the gaps?
Looking for suggestions, ideas to investigate, food for thought.
I want to make the change to reduce energy consumption and at least break even on long-term costs; I'm not looking to change the actual performance of the lights much. I want to ease into a hybrid instead of going full LED because I'm pretty conservative about changing things on the tank (it ran overdriven NO T8s until about five years ago, to give you an idea of how conservative
), and because it would be easy to do given the individual T5 fixtures.Reading threads, it seems hybrid systems tend to be some pretty standard LED (often a puck style) augmented by a pair of actinic T5HO. I'm not looking for any more blue spectrum than I already have, so I'm not sure that's the best idea for me (maybe it is and I just don't know it). I am familiar with AI Primes -- I currently own a FW model (gen previous to the current one, I think) that is on a frog vivarium, and used to own a first gen SW model (I didn't like it, and sold it -- I thought the performance was pretty poor).
I recently got a pair of Fluval Plant 3.0 fixtures for my FW planted tank, and I like them so far -- two of them are more powerful than the 4x T5HO I had on the planted tank previously. But I don't see the Fluval units getting a lot of love here.
I checked out the Orphek Light bars. A pretty different sort of light -- not controllable at all, it looks like. I'm not totally on board with the direct from China approach. All worth it because of the performance per dollar, maybe?
Reef Bright strips look pretty expensive for what they are -- just blue, or just blue and white. They'd need some work to find a T5 lamp that fills in the gaps?
Looking for suggestions, ideas to investigate, food for thought.
