Thoughts on adding a T5HO fixture to current setup

[minus9]

Sorry, I missed the old pic part of your post, apologies. I just saw the stark white rock and it sent me down my dry rock soapbox.
You can certainly use the T5 fixture you have, but as mentioned by others, it's not going to cover much and kinda look weird in the tank. Budget-wise, maybe check out some AliE bars? They would be your cheapest option, but I would just tell the big cheese that the current light will only suffice for very low light softies and maybe a couple LPS? If you're going to use the T5 fixture, just a couple blue+ bulbs will do, but again, it's not going to cover much. Do you have a current pic of the tank?
Maybe what you can do that might help is bring someone from a LFS to the office so they can talk to you in front of your boss and explain the lighting situation and how it's not going to cut it. Maybe hearing from a "pro" will spark the boss to move a little on the lights? Just a thought......

 

[Uncle99]

So my next question would be, since it’s only a 36” fixture, should I place it over the center of the tank where everything will get some of the light, or place it over the last of the tank where the more light hungry corals will be?

My tank is 6ft and the lights are 4ft, so I placed in the Centre.
I’m running them about 20” from water surface, so some T5 still spills into the extra foot on each side.
I find corals very adaptable to PAR within limits.

 

[mboley]

I run T5s. You can buy a 48" 4 or 6 bulb Hydroponic fixture on Amazon for a good price. You'll need more than a two bulb fixture to grow higher light corals.

 

[bluecheese]

One thing I didn't think of is that even though the tank is 6 feet long, there are overflows on each end that take up 8" each. That's 16" of total dead space. So I'm really just trying to light up a 4'-8" long section of tank. Add to that, the closest corals to the overflows are 5" away from them. So that's another 10". So only 3'-10" of space needs to be lit by a 36" fixture.

I ordered some ATI bulbs - a Blue+ and a True Actinic. The plan right now is to hang the fixture at the center of the tank on one side or another of the existing LED fixtures. And just monitor the corals to see how they react. I'll have an acclimation period - possibly starting with one hour a day of the T5s being on, and increasing the on time from there.

Looking at what others have done, it seems like its the opinion of many to not have the T5s on through the entire light cycle. Maybe I'll try an on time of 5 hours midway through the existing light cycle and see how things shake out.

To get an idea of how the bulbs may look in the tank, I watched this video

And then this video

 

[RedoubtReef]

I have a 6’ long 125 gallon tank at my office. You can check my build thread for the specifics.

Long story short:

When we built our new office back in 2020, the boss wanted a reef tank in the conference room. He knew I had some experience with aquariums, so he left it up to me to plan and take care of the tank. Which is kind of cool that I’m getting paid to do my hobby at work.

But he ran out and bought a bunch of used equipment off of Facebook marketplace without knowing what he was buying, and basically told me “make it work.”

I’ve been slowly getting rid of the stuff we don’t need and replacing old items with modern versions.

One thing he really won’t budge on is lighting. We are currently using the old version of the Current USA Marine Orbit fixtures. We have two 36” fixtures suspended over the tank. I’d love to replace these with something else, but the price of new fixtures are an issue.

Here are some pictures from two years ago when I installed the lights:

These lights aren’t really the best. I can grow softies and have had mixed success with euphyllia. I have some chalices and leptos which are doing fine. Someone gave me Monti caps two times, and they both died rather quickly.

I tried a Birdsnest, but it isn’t really taking off, and I suspect the lights may be the issue.

So I have a 36” Glo brand T5ho leftover from before I switched my home planted tank to LED.

If I were to switch out the bulbs to something more reef friendly, do you think I could use it in conjunction with the existing LED fixtures to be able to grow more light hungry corals like Birdsnest?

Thoughts on this?

T5s would be a great addition and even better as you primary lighting using LED as the accent lighting. Go for it.

 

[delv2323]

If he wants to pay you by pulling you off of your primary job to tinker with an office novelty, he's certainly welcome to do so.

But it's not a wise business choice.

Hahaha...do you think the business can afford to pay you $7 every two years to swap out the bulbs?

Where is the logic in this thinking?

 

[bluecheese]

Hahaha...do you think the business can afford to pay you $7 every two years to swap out the bulbs?

Where is the logic in this thinking?

Obviously the 30 minutes I spend a week doing water changes, and the 10 minutes of daily maintenance is going to bankrupt us.

 

[bluecheese]

Ok, received the bulbs, and good gravy are these things bright. Scared the bejesus out the fish when I turned it on. Makes the tank look stark.

I’ll post pictures next week to get thoughts on it.

 

[bluecheese]

I took some pics this morning.

Just the original lights

Just the t5 fixture with ATI Blue+ and True Actinic

And, with both on

Looks very blue in these pics, but looks a lot more white in person. I didn’t really like the look yesterday, but when I turned the t5s on this morning, it didn’t seem as bad. The corals really do pop under these lights.

I’ll stick with this for now - slowly acclimating the tank to the new fixture by adding 30 minutes of light time a week - and see how the corals react.

 

[bluecheese]

And I went to the office on my day off to feed the fish and take these pictures. I’m going to ask the boss to pay me overtime for this.

 

[piranhaman00]

You don’t need to acclimate corals to t5s. Just turn them on full blast. I would run for at least 12 hours. You already have the bulbs but I would do blue plus and aqua blue special instead of actinic.

 

[bluecheese]

Why the aqua blue instead of actinic?

 

[piranhaman00]

True actinic is low par and little value . ABs is very bright and white!

 

[bluecheese]

Man, this thing looks stark white as it is in person. Any whiter and it’ll be albino.

 

[RedoubtReef]

You may just need to give it time. If all you ever ran was heavy blue, you have to give yourself some time to adjust.

 

[bluecheese]

Forgot I took a quick video of me switching the t5s on manually. Try to ignore the dirty glass.

 

[bluecheese]

Well I tried to attach a video, but it won’t post. I’ll try to take one on Tuesday when I’m back in the office.

 

[oreo54]

Well I tried to attach a video, but it won’t post. I’ll try to take one on Tuesday when I’m back in the office.

You had "a video" up for awhile. I watched it (what was it about 10sec?).
There was an odd click in the background.. Not sure if that was the t5 timer/switch or what

Actually I would have guessed from the color you had the t5s on first and then added the Current LEDs..

.Anyways gone now..

 

[bluecheese]

You had "a video" up for awhile. I watched it (what was it about 10sec?).
There was an odd click in the background.. Not sure if that was the t5 timer/switch or what

Actually I would have guessed from the color you had the t5s on first and then added the Current LEDs..

.Anyways gone now..

Let me try again posting it again

The clicking you heard was an annoying ac wave maker that I haven’t gotten around to replacing.

Video:

Let me know if this works.

 

[oreo54]

Let me try again posting it again

The clicking you heard was an annoying ac wave maker that I haven’t gotten around to replacing.

Video:

Let me know if this works.

Works for me ..