Reef Discussion

ryan1986

Member
Sep 6, 2014
237
48
Led Question
Ok so in my redsea max 250 I have 6x39w t5 globes that need replacing.

I found a 2ft 90w led light with sunrise timer for $60 Not full spectrum just blue and white.

Just wondering if people think it would be worth removing say 4-5 t5 globes and fitting this in the hood and leaving 1 or 2 globes which i could run more an arctic or blue plus globe to give extra spectrum.
Or would it be a total waist of time and money and just keep the t5 globes.
 

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NiCd

Lead Moderator
Jul 29, 2011
4,296
1,586
Sydney
Do you know what brand the light fixture in your first post is?

Blue/White is normally fine and will keep the majority of corals that you should be looking at.

There are LED's and there are LED's though, power consumption doesn't translate into light output so you generally need to know what diodes it is running and even then there are bin numbers/grading that change the quality massively.

In the primary market you generally get what you pay for, second hand there are some bargains to be had but at $60 I am suspecting this is probably not a quality fixture.
 

ryan1986

Member
Sep 6, 2014
237
48
Do you know what brand the light fixture in your first post is?

Blue/White is normally fine and will keep the majority of corals that you should be looking at.

There are LED's and there are LED's though, power consumption doesn't translate into light output so you generally need to know what diodes it is running and even then there are bin numbers/grading that change the quality massively.

In the primary market you generally get what you pay for, second hand there are some bargains to be had but at $60 I am suspecting this is probably not a quality fixture.
I won't lie its a Chinese unit called Dsunny. I was thinking with both try and keep as many T5 globes as posible and use the others to supplement the T5. The Zetlight I would need to replace a few leds but that ant hard.
 

NiCd

Lead Moderator
Jul 29, 2011
4,296
1,586
Sydney
If you can get past the cost of t5's they are actually really good.

With the exceptions of the pop factor, the power consumption and life span everything else about them actually seems to be better for growing corals.

If you stick with the tank as its designed, stock it within the limitations of the tank, you can have a cranking reef, that will be better than 80% of the tanks out there.

The most difficult thing in reefing to do is to try and have a bit of everything - "I want a softies, LPS, SPS and NPS mixed tank and aggressive and passive fish with 32 different types of crusts in it"

You can do that in a massive tank by setting up different zones and throwing lots of money at it but in your tank look at what it is and work your stock within that, despite our need to tinker, it works really well as it is, for what it was intended to do.
 

ryan1986

Member
Sep 6, 2014
237
48
If you can get past the cost of t5's they are actually really good.

With the exceptions of the pop factor, the power consumption and life span everything else about them actually seems to be better for growing corals.

If you stick with the tank as its designed, stock it within the limitations of the tank, you can have a cranking reef, that will be better than 80% of the tanks out there.

The most difficult thing in reefing to do is to try and have a bit of everything - "I want a softies, LPS, SPS and NPS mixed tank and aggressive and passive fish with 32 different types of crusts in it"

You can do that in a massive tank by setting up different zones and throwing lots of money at it but in your tank look at what it is and work your stock within that, despite our need to tinker, it works really well as it is, for what it was intended to do.
I mainly want Lps, things like hammers, torch, acans, elegance some more sand dwelling corals and an anemone. I'm not overly keen on sps except montipora.
 

Sam Parker

Moderator
May 6, 2013
4,802
2,397
Geelong
id stick with the t5's for now. They are a known quantity and a set of bulbs wont cost the earth. If you do decide to switch to Led in future, save the cash and spend it once on something decent. Otherwise you'll always be wondering.