I ran that same fixture over a 120 I had. I never ran any fans. Changed bulbs every 12 months. Everything worked greatOk so the old hamilton is being boxed up and sent back. Today I installed the new giesemann fixture. Remember that I am using 400W radiums with 400w luxcore ballasts, running them on the 400w super lumens selector. My T5 bulbs don't arrive until tomorrow, so for now the fixture is only running the halides.
And all I can say is WOW what a difference. These lights are bright and fantastic. I am getting 200-250 par in the far corners and 300-400 almost everywhere else. And this is with the fixture a full 18.5" above the water! This is exactly what I was looking for. And for comparison, remember that on the hamilton I was getting 300 PAR at 7" below the fixture, no matter where I put the seneye. Well, 7" below this fixture I get 1400 PAR which is what I'd expect for a properly working halide. While I realize this is 400w vs 250w, I'd expect a 250w to still put out 1000 PAR at that level. So for clarity, it's very evident something was wrong with the Hamilton fixture and it was not working correctly.
This giesemann is a fantastic fixture, and my wife said she likes the look a lot better too. (happy wife happy life) I noticed the giesemann has no active cooling so I'm wondering if I should add a fan or two? Although it has a lot of holes for venting above/below.
Ya Man + 1 on the TA bulbs. I ran 4 TAs along side 250 Radiums over a deep blue 80. Looked absolutely fantastic. I think that people will often just toss a single TA in the middle of a bunch of of BP and complain because visually the TA are overwhelmed. The TA produce a beautiful look that approaches the URI actinic t12 bulbs (to my eye the best looking bulbs produced to date).
250s are pretty potent and will take care of business as well as allow for a longer photo period. If you run 400s consider 4 TAs, they look awesome when not overwhelmed by other lights. Last hour of the day with TA only really makes for good viewing experience.
That sucks man. It's a nice fixture but German doesn't always mean perfect. I remember servillius on 3 reef had the same fixture delivered bad as well. All company's can have a defective product.
I called BRS, and obviously I'm rusty on T5s, forgot that if one of the two bulbs is bad, then it wont complete the circuit on that side and thus neither bulb will light. Swapping bulbs now to test! Hopefully, just a bad bulb.
Bummer on the bad bulb, I know Actinics have scared me in the past because on first burn they don't even light for 30 seconds or so sometimes. They really take a minute to get the phosphor fully fluorescing. I think you'll like the look with 2 actinics at least. Will complement the Radium's spectrum much better than most 'blue' and 'white' type T5 bulbs.
