Wanting some Input

[Reefland]

Cool, thanks for the info!

Now for a personal preference question, for supplementing MH's, T5 or VHO?

[The Grim Reefer]

I don't care for the visible color of the VHO but they sure do pop the color nice. I use a Helios superblue T5 for mine. It is a little brighter than the T5 superblue and is almost torquoise (sp?) color, just a little more toward aqua color than the blueplus.

[Reefland]

We have ran nothing but halides on our 75 since we started it. We started with 10k Ushio's and moved to 20k AB's and now run 10k XM's. Obviously the most bang is with the 10k's but I eventually plan to add some actinic.

[The Grim Reefer]

I ran EVC 14k De's until a couple weeks ago. You don't need no actinics with those babies. If you have DE's check out the phoenix 14's, pretty good PAR and you don't need much actinic if any. I have ran a used Aquaconnect over my tank doing a PAR measurment and I wouldn't run actinics with that lamp either.

[Reefland]

I really like the look of the 20k AB's but their PAR stinks per Joshi's site. Isn't worth running them for the appearance only.

[The Grim Reefer]

Check out the numbers on some of the 14K's. I hear Ushio has one out now too.

[Reefland]

I hear a lot of people saying good things about the coloration of the Hamilton 14k's.

[Treg]

I hear Ushio has one out now too.

I'll have mine next week. I'll let you know how it compares to the AC14k
I emailed Sanjay about the CCT and PAR since he hasnt posted the #'s yet, his response was the #'s are VERY close to the BLV 10k. That sounds promising for a 14k bulb, cheaper than the BLV also.

[The Grim Reefer]

Hey Treg,

The AC lamp that is in your fixture looked pretty nice although the PAR was low. Those bad boys must look great when new. I just found out we are moving down by Denver so maybe in the new house I'll have room to set up enough tanks to really have some fun with lamps

[Reefland]

Hi Treg,

Where did you get those from, if you don't mind me asking?

[golfish]

I hear a lot of people saying good things about the coloration of the Hamilton 14k's.

I ran a 250 watt DE 14K Hamilton for a while. It looked a little too yellow for me. Reminded me of a 10k...

[Treg]

Like I said, that bulb had a LOT of use. Atleast 3,000 hrs. Way worn out.
I do really like the AC14k on the new M80 ballast I got better than my electronics. Much brighter and not quite as 20kish blue.

I'm still going with the Ushio 14k this time around but I'll be keeping the AQ14k M80 thought in my back pocket. ;)

Hey Reefland,
Thanks!
Nice site ya got here.

I bought the Ushio 14ks from Greg @ ReefGeek. Same price as the Ushio 10ks and cheaper than the BLV, which is little suprising I thought.

[The Grim Reefer]

I fired that lamp on the EVC E-ballast and it looked good pretty white with blue tone but not much. Way brighter and whiter than the EVC 14Ks.

[DapperDan]

Back to the T5s!

Remembering my college chemistry courses I really don’t think fluorescent bulbs can shift their color spectrum. Fluorescent lamps get their color temp from a blending of phosphors. It would be chemically impossible for the phosphors to change inside an airtight bulb. From what I know phosphors can be depleted, which would diminish light output, but they cannot change. Therefore no spectrum shift!

DD

[The Grim Reefer]

I got my information on how they can change spectrum from a guy who designs and tests lamps so this is according to him. Unless the lamp is a single phosphor design they shift spectrum over time because the phosphors dont degrade at the same rate. He also says the blue spectrum is the first to be effected as the intensity of the UV light decreases.

What I know is that I have measured PAR on 80 watt T5's and after a year they still produced about 80 percent of the light they did when they were new. Iwan from the TOTM states that he and other people he knows running T5's are changing their lamps at about 8 months because after that they see a difference in the growth and color. He is running the same brand lamps I was so I assume he had better than 80 percent of the original PAR still being produced. That seems to back up the assertion that T5's can shift spectrum.

Maybe Iwan is running on the raggid edge and a slight loss of PAR was very noticable in his tank, I dunno and aint dropping 5 grand on a spectrometer to find out.