retro fitting without a canapy

Antonias1391 · Jun 29, 2010

i was wondering if this is a good idea. im wanting to retro fit 2-4 t5 to the sides of my MH but i have no canapy. and im woryed about the light not getting where its supposed to. the lights are about 10 in off the tank, mainly because of heating issues but i could add a fan. thanks for the advice and i would love to see pics of ppls MH t5 setups :nerd:
Anthony

Antonias1391 · Jun 29, 2010

evening bump

inactive · Jun 30, 2010

Drill and tappppp

Antonias1391 · Jun 30, 2010

ya i have a idea of what i want to do but i just need my retro fit i have a old 4 bulb t4 fixture that im thinking of scrapping when my mom gets her new fixture. and also my idea is ti get some aluminum bars and bolt them to my MH fixtures on the side. also what type of bulbs should i use if im only doing 2 bulbs? KZ fiji and B+? and what about 4 as well? thanks for suggestions
Anthony

Paul_N · Jun 30, 2010

What size tank do you have?
If you just want the T5 for supplemental lighting along with (2) MH 250w say then (2) T5 would be enough. If you have only one MH or even (2) 175w then you may want (4) T5 to give you more par. It all is going to depend on the tank, it's dimensions and what you want to keep. I was going to suggest the aluminum bars riveted or bolted to the MH reflectors/fixtures. that is probably the best way without a canopy. Someone on here did just that with some LED strips.

Antonias1391 · Jul 1, 2010

ya i want the bulbs more for color and morning evening effects. my current MH are 2 250w phoenix 14ks

Paul_N · Jul 1, 2010

I have (2) 250w mh 14k on my 75 gallon and (2) T5's. The T5's are just for dawn to dusk effect. They get washed out by the metal halides while they are on. I can barely tell they are on. I just stopped running them while the MH are on. I could not fit anymore T5's in my canopy. You would probably want (4) T5's to make a noticeable difference while the T5's are on.