Could someone help with t5s?

[Amy Dawson]

hi everyone, hope you all had a good holiday. So I'm looking at some new t5 lighting and had a couple questions. I have a 55 gallon mixed reef tank. Right now I am using mars aqua LED lighting and I'm not very happy with the lights. I'm looking at a dimmable sun power t5 fixture now. It's fairly expensive compared to my mars aqua so I'd rather not make a mistake and have to ship them back.

The set I'm looking at is-
48 inch 54watt 6 bulb or 8 bulb
Would this be suitable for a 55 gallon. I didn't know if the bulb should go the entire length of the tank? Would I need the 6 bulbs or 8 bulbs? I have an enclosed canopy would these lights put out too much heat?

My water parameters are always correct and I do water changes weekly but my corals are not looking very good so I'm guessing it's the lighting. I've heard a lot of mixed reviews on leds.

 

[Sabellafella]

hi everyone, hope you all had a good holiday. So I'm looking at some new t5 lighting and had a couple questions. I have a 55 gallon mixed reef tank. Right now I am using mars aqua LED lighting and I'm not very happy with the lights. I'm looking at a dimmable sun power t5 fixture now. It's fairly expensive compared to my mars aqua so I'd rather not make a mistake and have to ship them back.

The set I'm looking at is-
48 inch 54watt 6 bulb or 8 bulb
Would this be suitable for a 55 gallon. I didn't know if the bulb should go the entire length of the tank? Would I need the 6 bulbs or 8 bulbs? I have an enclosed canopy would these lights put out too much heat?

My water parameters are always correct and I do water changes weekly but my corals are not looking very good so I'm guessing it's the lighting. I've heard a lot of mixed reviews on leds.

6 is fine, more bulbs the merryer lol i run a 6 bulb 54watt dimmable on my tank is 60 inches. I went smaller because i needed some lower lit areas opposed to the 60 inch fixture. Also from front to back, if you have anything more then 20 inches, i would consider the 8 bulb and up

 

[nervousmonkey]

+1. @Sabellafella knows the T5 world. esp. the ATI T5's.

 

[Amy Dawson]

Thanks guys!! I have some mushrooms that like the lower light. Should I buy them a little shorter than the tank so I have lower light on the sides?

 

[Sabellafella]

Thanks guys!! I have some mushrooms that like the lower light. Should I buy them a little shorter than the tank so I have lower light on the sides?

Thats up to you, imo i think it looks better when the fixture runs flush with the sides of the tank. I opted for a shorter fixture just because it fit the dimensions exactly to my aquascape lol and shading persay. All my low light corals hangout in the corners or shaded but its not necessary

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

You'll have to acclimate. As you add intensity slowly. Again slowly watch the nutrients and go slow. My shrooms afe actually under pretty high light and the six bulb combo is a pretty common choice for a 55. Depending on the height of fixture you IME could go with a for bulb and LED strip. I'd actually reccomend that cuz ramping is awfully cool. I ran a retro fit kit with a current orbit v1. On my 55. And it was pretty spectacular. Shrooms zoas on the bottom and acro sps at the top of high rocks. Xenia to actually eight inches or so from the bulb. Xenia will take a lot of light. Who knew.

Either way you'll have to vent the hood maybe mod it to fit a fixture.

 

[Diesel]

Amy, can you post a few pics of your tank and let us see what's wrong with your corals.
Test results from your water will be handy as well.
Thank you so much

 

[Bpb]

Wait wait wait. I'm all for moving to t5ho. Having spent time with LEDs, mh, and t5ho, I can definitely say my favorite light thus far has been my ati sunpower. However...55 gallons you say? Always check measurements before buying something like this. The 8 bulb ati sunpower is 18" wide. Your outer two bulbs would be just lighting up the floor, wall, and room, with virtually none of it contributing to your tank at all.

The 4 bulb sunpower will be your best bet. Even the 6 bulb would be slightly too big at 13.5" wide. You shouldn't ever get a fixture that is larger than your tank footprint. Just paying to waste light. The 4 bulb ati sunpower, suspended 10-12" off the water will be more than enough to grow even the most light demanding anything. If you were to get the 36" version it would even give you some of those 100-150 par low light zones on the edges.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Amy, can you post a few pics of your tank and let us see what's wrong with your corals.
Test results from your water will be handy as well.
Thank you so much

And yes. It's not the lights. Light is just one part of the balancing act.

 

[Amy Dawson]

I'm home sick from work but so I had to take pics from a video I had so hopefully they're clear enough you can see. I'll post them now. I never knew that about xenia that's cool. I'll look into those lights as well "current orbit" I'd like to buy something today while everything is on sale

 

[Amy Dawson]

The pictures aren't the best but I'm guessing my problem is my lighting

 

[Amy Dawson]

A lot of the corals are bleaching or reversing and there isn't a lot of growth at all. The Zoas used to cover like a blanket and now they are sparse. I do know that I have some bristle worms in the rock I've been trying to catch them for a couple weeks

 

[Amy Dawson]

Receding I mean not reversing

 

[Amy Dawson]

I will post the parameters when I get to work

 

[Diesel]

I will post the parameters when I get to work

That would be helpful, Amy.
PH
Temp
ALK
CAL
MAG
No3
Po4

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I will post the parameters when I get to work

I wont talk you out of changing lights, I just thought this might be helpful.
once you decide on the tubes you like,4 t5 bulbs put out a specific amount of Par. this does not ever change, exept as they age.
So on a 55 gal tank at 10 in the top of the water will receive approx(very rough est) 700 par. if you add a low power led like my current orbit led at full it will add an additional 250-300 or so par.
with leds like the black boxes that come with dimmers how much par is the top of the tank getting? folks constantly ask what setting percentage etc, and without a par meter its pretty hard to tell. I advocate LUX meters as they are cheaper and work similarly. Id be glad to walk you throug it if you like.
with a t5
Once you have a set par, nutrients are taken up at a set rate and you can see from testing and watching the corals if theres too much or not enough food in the water. as we know what the par is and react only to that indicator. were I to buy a t5 i would not use the dimmer except maybe to acclimate, dimming burns the tubes fastertoo.

So in essence the amount of light(par) sets the pace for coral metabolism.
more light and they use food faster(bleaching) and with too little(browning). different corals of the same genus(zoas) will take very different light to btw, they do this keep us guessing.
so imo most folks dont know what the par is and constant tweaking changes the energy the corals need drastically. its very common. and you may guess, Im not pro dimmer.

Fwiw Diesel and I in another thread were talking to a reefer with very high light, and couldn't keep up the nutrients as the huge coral bio load and increased metabolism sucked the No and Po right out of the water. Needless to say, he had Zero algae in the DT.

back to my xenia growing under SUPER high light. when the Po goes down, it shrinks.

Ive had one set of brown zoas next to perfect zoas, when i turned up the light the good ones got better the brown ones weren't brown any more. and some zoas at that time that didnt even open, till I turned up the lights.
Imo, zoas are quite cruel that way.


what i see in your tank is a bit of probably too low a light level. or high nutrients. Id also wager its a young tank. thats hard as nutrients biofilter alk are not super stable yet.
there's a possibility there's another water quality problem but it would be from rodi not Alk cal Po no. As Ive totally messed that up slowly and it didn't kill the corals.

where are your leds set, 40%? at 14 high?

 

[Amy Dawson]

when my corals started turning white I slowly turned down the leds. They are around 400 par at the surface of the tank. Everyone kept saying how powerful the leds were so I was afraid to turn them up. Leds are Aprox 10 inches above the water.

I do have Zoas that aren't opening at all but the birdsnest corals look pretty. Kind of strange because I thought birdsnest corals liked higher lighting. The large brown mushroom coral died a few days ago. I think it was from temp dropping. My heater stopped working overnight and the temp dropped to 72. All of the pics are previous to the drop in temp so you can still see it's not looking quite right then either.

The tank is new. Aprox 6 months old

I do feed everything a lot. I do the corals every 3 days and fish twice a day. I use reef roids, flake food, Mysis shrimp, pellet food and a frozen mixture of seafood. I mix it up for the fish.

A weird thing that happened a couple weeks ago. I don't know if this will mean anything at all but I bought some corals at a guys shop. In the shop the Zoas were yellow in my tank they turned bright green right away. I don't know if that would be a problem with chemistry?

To start the tank I was using conditioned tap water. I did it that way for months until around 3 weeks ago and I started buying ocean water at petco. I've been looking at rodi systems but haven't purchased one yet

 

[Amy Dawson]

Also, I do have some algae growing esp on the sand. And some green algae that will grow on the glass. I always scrap it off as soon as it gets started though.

I haven't lost very many corals they just don't look as healthy as they should. All the fish seem very healthy and I haven't lost any of them

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

It's hard for most to belive and many won't. But a young tank is so different from a young one.
Your having some pretty normal problems. The tap water is a concern. Clearly you don't have cloramimes in yours I did and lost a lot of great animals. Mine was bad rodi from trusted friends.
That's going to take several weeks to heal from.
Pretty much all coral it seems will take what many consider high light. But the problem with less is the dimmer. Set it and never touch it. Maybe to acclimated but that's it. A t5 will give you a set par and be done.
Algae is normal. Folks who say it's not are wrong. It's a garden we are growing and sometimes there's weeds. They come and go.

The internet is tricky as it is a great resource for info but there's some bad info and a lot of plain old marketing and shaming. Esp where algae is concerned.
A tank isn't furniture as many seem to treat it in the quest for color and growth. As anyone who has has a vegetable garden or rises or bansai it takes time.
I've always has budget issues in reefing and it's a piece at a time. No shame there. Rodi is a pia and if I had my way I'd have a guy deliver it. But I'd test it before I paid him.
If you maintain a consistence In light food an water that's easy for you. IMO you'll find greater success.
It sound like your actually well on your way. But like many light is the last question.

 

[Amy Dawson]

Thank you so much for your help. I ended up not getting the t5s. I did get an rodi system but I'm thinking I might stick with the ocean water. Just topping off with that for a couple weeks and doing my 15% water change I've already noticed a huge difference in the tank and in the algae.