To halide or not to halide? - Hmmmm?

T

tdapple

[I have been telling myself t5's are enough, and haven't seen any evidence showing their not. but every time a tell someone I have sps under them there like..."you'll have halides within six months" wich makes me question if my T5's are enough. the tank is 21' deep and I have 8x39w t5's. Every thing seems to be doing ok.

I dunno....I guess I need convincing to go halide or stay t5. And if I went halide how much do I need to grow sps in a 36lx18wx21h tank. hmmmm...choices.]
 
[Honestly I have seen some awesome SPS under T5s.

Here is the deal. Acros in my experience grow faster and exhibit better color under MHs than under any other lighting. The PAR is just hard to compete with using any other lighting system!

So can you keep SPS under T5s? Absolutly. Will they grow as fast and be as colorful as under MHs? Most likely not! Generally speaking the PAR of T5s is going to be much lower than optimal!

If you do switch with that size tank I would go with dual 175W. Should be plenty. You could go with 250W and use 20Ks and no supplementation also.

Realize almost everything I have said here I have no scientific proof or data on. Just what I've seen and heard over time!]
 
[I have seen some awesome sps tanks with t5 lighting....but I have seen much more with halides. Halides are the only way to go if you ask me.]
 
[Just to add to what bigstun said I will also never have SPS without MH so even though it can be done I think the advatages of halides are huge.]
 
[In your sized tank, I see no reason to get halides, though bulb replacement may be cheaper in the long run? A single 175w halide would be plenty for your tank, or keep the T5's.

Plus in a smaller tank, do you really want things to grow that fast?

Also you must define SPS, some will do fine under 4, 40w NO bulbs, others may need 1000w halides to have a chance (I'm sure theres one out there :p )

Every thing seems to be doing ok. said:
You know what they say, if it ain't broke...]
Click to expand...
 
[I used to have just 4x65 PC + 2x110 VHO over my 72 tank. All of my "experimental" SPS frags turned brown after a couple of months.

Then I switched over to 2 250W 10K and 2x110 VHO actinics and within 2 months, the same brown SPS are now showing green, purple, pink colors. Polyps are out during the day, too.

Never had T5 to compare.]
 
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