Aqutic life t5 fixture

Alan600 · Nov 19, 2015

I have 2 24 inch 4 bulb t5 aqutic life fixture . My question is has anybody had great success with these fixtures. Good growth , good color etc. I had these for 8 months now and i really haven't had any growth on my corals . I just wanted to see if it's me or the fixtures are under powering the tank .

twilliard · Nov 19, 2015

Hi in my opinion there is more to growth than lighting.
For instance alkalinity plays a big role in it and so does no3 and po4

cloak · Nov 19, 2015

So your running 8 bulbs at once? (confused) How big is your tank? What kind of bulbs are you using? What are your parameters?

Alan600 · Nov 19, 2015

My tank is 40 gal and it 4ft long I have two 24 inch 4 bulb fixtures and yeah 8 bulbs in total .
Alk 8-9
Cal 420
Mag 1200
No3 5 ppm
Po4 I haven't checked

Alan600 · Nov 19, 2015

ATI bulbs

cloak · Nov 19, 2015

How deep is the tank? Do you have a lot of blue bulbs in the mix? Are you dealing with any nuisance algae at the moment?

cincyreef · Nov 19, 2015

I used one a couple years ago on a 55 gallon mixed reef and had good growth and color. I recently just put one on my 29 cube but have only had it on there for around 4 weeks. I haven't seen much growth yet, but I also had some alkalinity swings recently. I think they're decent lights for the price. I'm also running ATI bulbs in them now, and ran them over the 55 as well.

TomatoSauceTy · Nov 19, 2015

Growth on what?

I had 1 24" 4 bulb aquaticlife t5 and I've had candy cane go from two heads to 20, hammer had 1 head and now has about 20, green star polyps on a frag plug took over a 6" rock etc...I had plenty of growth, but I also fed reef chili and lps pellets. I also used ATI bulbs.

I'm now using LEDs and it hasn't been long enough to tell a difference.

I do like the fixture, but built in timers worry me. It would be amazing if they had some kind of paper clip hole button you could toggle the on/off if you wanted to use your own timers.

Alan600 · Nov 19, 2015

So I have 4 blue + and 4 coral +. It's about 12 inch deep and no I have no algae problem . It's a sps tank I still have a few zoas and lps

Alan600 · Nov 19, 2015

My parameters are very stable I just don't know what I'm doing wrong to get no growth

TomatoSauceTy · Nov 19, 2015

Alan600 said:
So I have 4 blue + and 4 coral +. It's about 12 inch deep and no I have no algae problem . It's a sps tank I still have a few zoas and lps

Have you looked at ATI's website for recommended bulbs? There is a difference between selling a coral at best color and having a tank. I recommend having some purple plus etc. since you have a 8 bulb setup that allows for a very good spectrum.

You may have some people able to run this with their corals, but some corals won't. It's all about experimentation and it's a good thing you only have a 24" fixture instead of something larger.

Alan600 · Nov 19, 2015

I really haven't I did try a 2 blue + 1 purple + and a coral +

TomatoSauceTy · Nov 19, 2015

Alan600 said:
I really haven't I did try a 2 blue + 1 purple + and a coral +

- 5 ATI Blue Plus
- 2 ATI Coral Plus
- 1 ATI Purple Plus
That's for a 16-20k look.

I'm not saying this will give you the best results etc, it's all about trying things, but since you do have 8 bulbs that allows a lot for the spectrum so I do recommend at least 1 coral plus and purple plus.

For example, I have leds and a lobo brain HATED IT, but when i used T5 with a purple plus the lobo LOVED it and colored up.