Who wants to help me pick out equipment :)

[Dana42078]

Dennis is right tho. MH t5 combo is going to give u the best replication of the suns light....with just a say 10k MH bulb your only hitting one spectrum. With the t5 supplements u can get 6,500k bulbs 14k bulbs ect ect...its all a matter of preference of the hobbiest. Both will do fine alone even better with a combo. The end.

 

[fastrd400]

. The end.

Are you done? LMAO :mrgreen:

 

[d2mini]

Do you run a chiller?

No, but i'm in Houston with central AC and the house is always in the low to mid 70's and around 69 at night. And my tank is an open top rimless so very little heat transfer to the water. I run a heater to keep it warm enough.

 

[d2mini]

I don't want to get in to the argument either, especially since i'm just going by personal experience, and maybe I worded it wrong, but I've always had much better luck, happier corals, etc with MH vs T5. T5 imho is good to get the "look" you want from a viewing standpoint, but i feel MH is healthier for the corals. The parts of the spectrum that plants (in this case corals) need to flourish is contained in the MH. T5 adds the extra blues that WE like when viewing our tanks. If i turned off my ATI bulbs, other than losing PAR, i bet my corals would grow just as well under just the MH bulb. I'd just have to move some of them closer to the light due to the loss of PAR. If i had to choose one or the other, I would hands down have a tank with just one MH bulb like a Pheonix 14k, rather than a T5-only setup (which i've had before). Again, all just based on previous experience. YMMV.

 

[fastrd400]

I don't want to get in to the argument either, especially since i'm just going by personal experience, and maybe I worded it wrong, but I've always had much better luck, happier corals, etc with MH vs T5. T5 imho is good to get the "look" you want from a viewing standpoint, but i feel MH is healthier for the corals. The parts of the spectrum that plants (in this case corals) need to flourish is contained in the MH. T5 adds the extra blues that WE like when viewing our tanks. If i turned off my ATI bulbs, other than losing PAR, i bet my corals would grow just as well under just the MH bulb. I'd just have to move some of them closer to the light due to the loss of PAR. If i had to choose one or the other, I would hands down have a tank with just one MH bulb like a Pheonix 14k, rather than a T5-only setup (which i've had before). Again, all just based on previous experience. YMMV.

Yeah, I agree 100%

I love the fact that I can add Purple Plus, and Blue Plus bulds in my T5, but honestly, the MH would be fine on their own.

 

[SarahSmile]

I'd beg to differ that a MH is the closest thing to replicating the sun but not gunma start a debate. U can google ATI fixture or go to my build thread and find it. Best t5 fixture IMO. Geismann is overly priced and didn't I say mp40 powerheads? Isn't that vortech?

Dana, Dana, Dana, you crack me up...Sir Alex was right, I was just saying I'm sure D2 has the Vortechs since Sir Alex said he had all the fancy stuff.
Let's all go have a drink, I feel like some de-stressing is necessary!

 

[Dana42078]

Lol where shall we meet? As for MH...a friend that I got my colonies of zoa's from only runs MH.... 10k at that. His tank looks dull as hell but his corals do flourish. Take his Zoa put them in my tank. Totally diff...I still have great growth but the "stalks" stay short in my tank where as they grew long and think with his light....like I said personal preference I'd rather not have to deal with the heat put out by a MH light. And love how corals look under my choice of bulbs....And my electric bill isn't high either.

 

[Sir Alex]

Comparing two tanks on MH: I saw one with bulbs that looked quite blue (probably 20k) which looked absolutely fabulous, and I saw a tank with much whiter bulbs (probably 14k or 10k), that looked kinda bla (they were both only MH). So that's probably why his tank looks so dull.

 

[d2mini]

10k is a VERY white light, almost starting to go a bit yellow.
This is why i prefer the mh/t5 combo. Best of both worlds.

Of course now LED's are taking over that roll, but those are well above the OP's price point.

 

[NanoReefer]

+1 dennis, and odyssea being a low quality is NOT true! they use the SAME ballast as the coralie t5 lights. and i agree with dennis 100% about metal halides simulating sunlight. he wasnt talking about the color of the bulb he was talking about the shimmer effect. i personally use a 4bulb odyssea fixture and i use ati bulbs a 420nm actinic a 460 nm actinic, a figi purple, and a 10k and it really simulates the color of a 20k halide