Going from LED to t5 6500K - A Journal

[Daddi0]

Thought I would start a journal chronicling our transition from LED back to t5.
We have been running a MarsAqua 300 LED for over a year and while everything is okay, it is not spectacular. Certain areas of the reef (65 gallon) seemed to grow coral good while the same coral 2 inches away would be struggling. Also the LED did not really get to the bottom of corals leaving some of the corals suffering at the base.
We pulled the Mars Aqua and replaced it with a 36" 6 bulb H/O T5 39w.(non-dimmable) We run 6 reefs and this tank is going to be our "grow" tank. To that end our starting bulb selection from the front is:
1 - Actinic
2 - 6500k
3 - 6500k
4 - 6500k
5 - 6500k
6 - 10,000k
This tank is SPS heavy with a major focus on Acros. Corals include:
Walt Disney, Homewrecker, The Vihn, Orange Passion Tenius, Blue Tenius, Midnight Blue Tenius, Purple Rain, Shawn Bennett Yellow Tort, Copps CalaCali, Lemon-Lime Tenius, Miyagi, Tri-color Valida, Tri-color Tort, Green Acro, Bali Slimer, Hawkins Enchinada, PokerStar Monti, Foxx Goldmeister chalice, Space Invader Chalice & Pectina, Pearlberry Acro, Tyree Ponepe Birdsnest, Bubble Gum Digi, Purple Bonsai, Turbinaria, Setosa, Idaho Grape Monti, Mummy Eye Chalice, Miami Hurricane Chalice, and others. Including a lot of frags for grow out.
Lights were swapped out on June 6th (day #1)

All are welcome to share their thoughts.
Cheers! Mark

[Daddi0]

Day #4
The color of the reef is about the same as if the reef was out in the sun. The corals all look good except the frags of PokerStar Monti. They appear to be struggling with the brightness. They were at about mid-tank. Moved the frags to another tank (lit only with blue Reefbrights) to recover. The Pokerstar "mother" is on the sandbed still so will keep an eye on it.

[Systemwizardinc]

I have LED's on my 100 gal and they are working fine i broke do a 180 and every thing was fine are you sure its the lights

[Daddi0]

I have LED's on my 100 gal and they are working fine i broke do a 180 and every thing was fine are you sure its the lights
I am not saying LEDs don't work. I am just seeing if I get more/better growth and better looking corals with the T5s at 6500k.
The reef that I changed the light on is part of 3 tank system that is all plumbed together. One of the other tanks in that system is an almost identical 60g still running a MarsAqua 300w. Since they are plumbed together I will be better able to judge the lighting since water parameters are the same in both tanks.
Cheers! Mark

[Systemwizardinc]

nice let us know how it works out i will be watching this post

[Daddi0]

I should add that I ran the T5s over this tank for a year and swapped over to LED 16 months ago. The main reason for the swap was the cost of new tubes. If I swapped them every 9 months or so, it was just shy of $200 a year. Well I came across some cheapy tubes on Ebay that would bring that down to about $50 a year!! It may work or it maybe a very costly mistake in the long run. Time will tell.
Cheers! Mark

[Daddi0]

Not much to add on the lighting front except that I noticed the T5s run a bit hotter than the LEDS. Nothing that I would normally care about but it was 102 degrees today and my reefs are in the garage. Looks like the reef topped out at 84.8 I dont run a chiller 'cause we get very few days that are this hot.
Cheers! Mark

[Daddi0]

I guess I did have a coral casualty today. Lost a Blue Tenius. Picked it up as a frag in Feb. It was doing fine, then STN today. Don't know if it was the lighting, heat or just some other unknown. It was on a rock that had some blue clove polyps starting to get close to it. I never had problems with the polyps before but maybe they irritated/stung the tenius??

[sneeyatch]

I think the color looks great - nice to see someone think outside the box a little - I'll be following this one - good luck

[Daddi0]

I think the color looks great - nice to see someone think outside the box a little - I'll be following this one - good luck
Thanks! They kicked me out of the box decades ago.

Unfortunately it is another 100 degree day out here. My first impulse was to just turn the lights out for the day. The t5s put out some heat towards the water and were about 3 inches above the tank. I moved the fixture up about 5 inches so some air can flow and have been adding bags of ice to keep the reef below 83. This may skew my results a bit.
Cheers! Mark

[paal]

Following :)

Which bulb model did you go with?

I just received a pair of discontinued Giesemann Midday 6000K. (they've been replaced by the G.Tropic 6500K) They will replace a pair of ATI Coral+ in my current 8x39WT5 + 300W LED hybrid.

Personally I am doing the swap hoping to get an overall whiter, less windexy ambient color. If it will increase growth as well, then that's a nice bonus :)
Will do the bulb change tomorrow.

[Daddi0]

Those 6000k should make the tank less blue than the 15000k coral plus tubes
I bought the cheap Odyssea tubes on ebay. The 6500k were $22 for 4 tubes (or $5.50 each)
https://www.ebay.com/itm/4x-T5-Bulb-39W-39-Watts-Aquarium-Lamp-HO-6500K-10000K-Actinic-Pink-Odyssea/290938355725?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&var=590200183518&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649
Post a pic. when you get the new bulbs in.
Cheers! Mark

[paal]

wow! Nice price! I pay more for a single Giesemann bulb than five of those! :D

I will try to take some pictures, but it's so hard to get the correct colors on camera.
If it gets too white for my liking I will fine-tune it with my LEDs.

(Actually, I am quite sure I will have to do that, and it is kind of the point as well: I am not super happy with the disco-effect when turning up the green/orange/red channels on my LEDs, so having T5s more on the white side and then compensating with a bluer/all blue LED-combo seems like a good strategy :)

[paal]

FWIW:
Took some pics today as the bulbs turned on:

First pic with 2x "Giesemann Actinic Blue" (roughly same as ATI blue+)
Second with 2x blue 2x 6000k bulb
Third with 2x blue, 2x 6000 and 2x actinic
Fourth with 4x blue, 2x 6000, 2x actinic

Also, the LEDs are ramping up during the start up sequence, so LEDS contribute more and more in the blue spectrum as time passes. (Screen-shot of program also added)

Overall, the pictures got too blue, especially the last picture with all bulbs on. (The sand is white-white; not blue) Id say the third picture is the closest to match my tank with all lights on and LEDs ramped to full. (Pic is still a little too blue though)
Although far from 100% accurate, at least it may give people interested in the bulb a rough estimate what the 6000k bulb does. It is very, very yellow compared to anything I've used before, but with enough blues it is awesome.

[Daddi0]

Looks good! Man your sand is so clean.

[paal]

Sand is new :) Used to run bare bottom to get more flow.

(I've always been a fan of siphoning / stirring the sand to keep it spotless though)

[Daddi0]

It will be interesting to see if the change in lighting causes either of us to have algae issues. My sand can be a little brown at times but I dont have any green hair algae.
Cheers! Mark

[Daddi0]

Well we are about 3 weeks in and everything is looking good! No issues and no algae. Very pleased that I am still GHA free. The corals seem to be growing faster, frags seem to encrust faster and no burned tips.
Cheers! Mark

[NewJack]

glad to hear the lighting experiment is working. Not to say that I "told you so", but I thought the results would be what you're getting. You just lose that nice pretty glow you get from the blue/actinic spectrum.
You can always go back to LED once everything is grown in to the point where you want stuff. So you can get the POP back.

[Daddi0]

glad to hear the lighting experiment is working. Not to say that I "told you so", but I thought the results would be what you're getting. You just lose that nice pretty glow you get from the blue/actinic spectrum.
You can always go back to LED once everything is grown in to the point where you want stuff. So you can get the POP back.
Yea, we need to listen & learn more from the guys that have been in the hobby for a long time. I still have 5 reefs that have the blue lights and the coral pop.
Cheers! Mark

[Daddi0]

It has been a month since changing to cheap t5s at 6500k. Everything looks really good. Frags seem to be encrusting faster and I am getting pretty quick growth on my corals. Still no algae issues. What I really like is that the lighting is really even across the reef. The lighting seems to have a "fullness" that gets everywhere with t5 whereas with the leds there was issues with the lighting that caused areas of the sticks to not really get any par and die. Even getting good growth on acros on the sandbed - 18 inches below water.
Cheers! Mark

[ThRoewer]

I should add that I ran the T5s over this tank for a year and swapped over to LED 16 months ago. The main reason for the swap was the cost of new tubes. If I swapped them every 9 months or so, it was just shy of $200 a year. Well I came across some cheapy tubes on Ebay that would bring that down to about $50 a year!! It may work or it maybe a very costly mistake in the long run. Time will tell.
Cheers! Mark

BRS did a test and by their findings, on a 8h on period for each bulb, you should be able to run T5s for at least 12 months, probably longer.

I didn't make a full switch but put an Aquatic Life combo fixture over my 100 gallon tank. Effectively I replaced one of the 3 Kessils I had over that tank before with 4 T5s. I have each of the 2 T5 banks on a 6h schedule with a 4h overlap so that the tank gets some T5 light for 8h. The remaining 2 Kessil A360EN LEDs are one a ramped profile over 12h.
So far, most of my corals seem to like it.

[Vinny Kreyling]

The old Iwasaki 6500 MH bulb grew corals like crazy but people did not like the yellow water look so they went on from there.

[Daddi0]

BRS did a test and by their findings, on a 8h on period for each bulb, you should be able to run T5s for at least 12 months, probably longer.

I didn't make a full switch but put an Aquatic Life combo fixture over my 100 gallon tank. Effectively I replaced one of the 3 Kessils I had over that tank before with 4 T5s. I have each of the 2 T5 banks on a 6h schedule with a 4h overlap so that the tank gets some T5 light for 8h. The remaining 2 Kessil A360EN LEDs are one a ramped profile over 12h.
So far, most of my corals seem to like it.
With these cheap tubes, I can afford to change earlier. Do you notice the t5s lighting areas that the leds dont reach?

[Daddi0]

The old Iwasaki 6500 MH bulb grew corals like crazy but people did not like the yellow water look so they went on from there.
I dont mind the yellowish look but sometime when someone comes over to buy a coral I have to shut the t5s off and shine some actinic in so they can visualize what the frag looks like

[ThRoewer]

With these cheap tubes, I can afford to change earlier. Do you notice the t5s lighting areas that the leds dont reach?

I have Pocillopora and Acropora growing on the bottom of the tank (24" tall tank & 22" deep water), some of them only get T5 light from one bank.
A red planet I have at about mid-level seems to be bleaching due to the light intensity and the coralline is literally burned away on the "sunny" side of the rocks and only grows in shady areas.

My LEDs do reach the bottom though as I have the Kessil A360 EN narrow beam LEDs that are particularly geared towards tall tanks. But some of the above coral grow where the LED light is blocked by the rocks.

As for changing lightbulbs, even cheap ones cost money (and produce hazardous waste!) so I would use them as long as possible before changing them. And the BRS test showed that there was no significant difference between the 6-month mark and the 12-month mark.