another lighting ?

[gaspusher]

Okay I need some advice. I have a 50g with NO t5's totaling 84watts and 10k with alluminum reflectors. in addition I have an 4 month old NO double strip flouescents totalling 37 w and 6500k (which I plan to discontinue its use when the bulbs go bad, thus I have 121w tot right now and less when i discontinue the flourescents. I am currently housing some softies and frogspawn which are all doing well. What i want to do is upgrade my lighting to have more versatility and success with all coral. there is a new lighting fixture -Nova Extreme T-5 Fixtures w/Lunar Lights 36" -which total 156 watts and are 10k with parabolic reflectors. will this setup let me grow some sps if I choose down the line? I know many of you will suggest MH but they cost a lot, unless i could get like an iwasaki 175w for cheap. I am also concerned about power consumption. T5's require less energy than mh and my girlfriend doesn't want to see our electric bill go throught the roof. I would appreciate any suggestions on upgrading my lighting to accomadating future needs.

thank you,
gaspusher

[David Grigor]

I don't know of any Nova fixture with true individual parabolic reflectors.

What makes T5 so special is the abillity to use individual parabolic reflectors to reflect all the light to the aquarium with virutally no restrike. All the Nova fixtures I have seen use flat reflectors and produce about half the light output of quality T5s setups.

[David Grigor]

If they do infact redesign the Nova to use individual parabolic reflectors, for sure don't jump on it right away. I'm sure Grimm and others on RC will do tests on it to figure out just how well the reflector designs are. I wouldn't buy it until that has all played out especially due to there poor performance track record on the current model.

Retro T5 will give you the most flexability and would be able to choose the best performing components to maximize light and minimize electricity. However, if a fixture is a must, The Aquaactinic 5 bulb fixtures is a pretty good performance for both light and electricity consumption.

[gaspusher]

These ones "Nova Extreme T-5 Fixtures w/Lunar Lights 36", are available at Drs Fosters and Smith and claim 99% reflection with parabolic reflectors. I believe these are new. i was unable to find the lights you mentioned above on google. is there another name?


Thank you

[storrisch]

http://www.aquactinics.com/

[David Grigor]

They aren't new. They've been out for several years.

Trust me, there defination of parabolic reflector basically means it's 90% flat with a little curl on the ends. That fixture will perform about as well as INDIVIDUAL reflectors system does with half the bulbs so it takes 8 bulbs to equal a quality T5 systems 4 bulb system.

Sure you can use high reflective material but if the light is just bouncing around and restriking the bulb you not getting any benefit from it, doens't mean 99% of the light is actually reaching the tank.

If your looking to maximize light and minimize electricity, this fixture is not for you.

If is a very poor performaner and not at all indicitive of what T5s are capable of.

[gaspusher]

Thank you, I understand what you are saying. i will a look at the ones you have recommended.

[gaspusher]

I have looked at the above website and wasn't sure which ones would fit my needs. what do you recommend from this supplier? I have a 50g with frags of softies and lps. Would also be interested in having some sps in the future.
thank you. oh, does need to be in its own housing since I don't have canopy for retro fit.

[storrisch]

http://diyreef.com/shop/product_info.php?cPath=90&products_id=464

the aquactinics site was down when i just tried but I found the 36" fixture on DIYreef

[David Grigor]

No canopy needed, it is a complete fixture totally plug and play ( except inserting the bulbs ). If you did have or plan to have a canopy then I'd recommend doing retro so you can use the best reflectors available and more customizable with number of bulbs.

Not for sure if the mounting options, but will look the sleekest if you hang it. I'm sure if it doesn't have legs available and don't want to hang, you can figure out someway to make them easily.

The one linked above is the one you would look at for a 50g 36" tank. That fixture will not really have any limitations, you'll be able to keep just about any SPS you want to throw at it providing your water parameters, flow, and filtration are adequate.

bulb selections it totally personal preferences and everyone would likely give you different answers, if this were mine, 3 UVL Actinic/Whites and 2 UVL Super Actinics will be very friendly with your existing LPS/softies and will still give awesome results with SPS/acros too...... Color will be very similiar with a 10K MH setup with actinic supplementation. Not super blue or anything.

They have great customer service and can answer just about any question you might have. There is a sponsor forum on Reefcentral to post a question or call them.