Light fixture T5HO question

[Alex_GT]

Hello People, i have a question that maybe you could help me with, I have this FOWLR (not a single coral) I used two led cheap lamps and one of them black out, anyway I am thinking in use a two bulbs T5HO lamp, I found that the hydroponic T5HO (for indoor plant grow) are cheap, they come with 6500k bulbs, anyway what happened if I buy one of them and exchange the bulbs for marine T5HO? I don’t need all the features the Reef Lamps come with since is a FOWLR not a Reef and I don’t want to pay for them.

So what do you think about buy the hydroponic lamps and exchange the bulbs? The 6500K bulbs will grow GHA or Cyano? I ask this because my PBT loves the GHA



Thanks a lot for the help

 

[blasterman]

Hello People, i have a question that maybe you could help me with, I have this FOWLR (not a single coral) I used two led cheap lamps and one of them black out, anyway I am thinking in use a two bulbs T5HO lamp, I found that the hydroponic T5HO (for indoor plant grow) are cheap, they come with 6500k bulbs, anyway what happened if I buy one of them and exchange the bulbs for marine T5HO? I don’t need all the features the Reef Lamps come with since is a FOWLR not a Reef and I don’t want to pay for them.

So what do you think about buy the hydroponic lamps and exchange the bulbs? The 6500K bulbs will grow GHA or Cyano? I ask this because my PBT loves the GHA



Thanks a lot for the help

The biggest issue with daylight balanced bulbs is they make marine fish look pretty dull. No bright blues or yellow. Thats superficial of course. Fish dont care. The 6500k bulbs do have a bit more PAR than than regular reef bulbs and hence will be better algae growers.

 

[Steve Erekson]

You can use a 6500k bulb in a reef setup, it's not uncommon for someone to run one in a 6 or 8 bulb array. They are pretty good at growing algae in my experience if you have too many of them so running both might be excessive but you can always experiment. If you don't like the 6500k bulbs buy some bluer ones like Coral Plus and swap them out.

 

[Alex_GT]

thanks a lot that was exactly my question if i can swap them i guess i will try the bulbs that come with and if the GHA goes out of control i will swap them, my PBT loves to eat it but i dont want the GHA to go out of control

 

[Steve Erekson]

Yeah I buy horticultural fixtures as well and usually chuck the bulbs and replace with ATI bulbs