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Permalink Reply by jackson hutchison on September 30, 2012 at 5:20pm

It depends on what plants you like the best. If you a fan of java fer, anubias, and cryptocoryne you coud get away with one flouresent fixture you probably have now. Now if you enjoy jungle val, amazon swords and sag you would need either dirt and a flouresent fixture with some filtered window light, or a double t5ho fixture. But if your favorite are most stem plants, groundcover plants, or most lilys and lotuses they prefer at least two t5ho double fixtures to grow, but even more to florish and grow to their full potential.

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Permalink Reply by Peter on September 30, 2012 at 6:24pm

With the lights that came with the tank you will only be able to grow low light plants I would suggest u get a 48" t5 (normal output) dual bulb fixture. You will be able to grow most plants but most red plants will lose their color red and turn green. If you want to keep high light plants that's wen you go get the t5ho lights The height of ur tank will affect how much light reaches ur substrate best to research what plants you are planning on keepin and what are the light needs of it.

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Permalink Reply by Mr awesome on October 7, 2012 at 6:16pm

Is dual t8s any good for a 55 gal

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Permalink Reply by Peter on October 7, 2012 at 7:51pm

Those are ok for medium to low light plants the rule of watts per gallon are for t8 bulbs

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Permalink Reply by Robert Jango on February 20, 2013 at 3:58pm

"whats to be noticed over the t5 is watts per lumen"

Do you mean lumens per watt?

And what is the lumens per watt in a T5? I could be wrong but I would think it would be comparable to the T8.

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Permalink Reply by Robert Jango on February 24, 2013 at 1:15am

I appreciate that you're trying to show me the difference between T5s and T8s but frankly I can't follow you. You write, "whats to be noticed over the t5 is watts per lumen almost 86 damn good and my bulbs are creepier and easyier to find."

86 more watts per lumen? Say what?

"creepier and easyier to find?" What does that mean?

"lumens per watt and watts per lumens are the same description of energy movement"

lumens per watt describes energy movement? Really?

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Permalink Reply by Robert Jango on February 25, 2013 at 12:04am

Very surprised to find out that T5s produce half the lumens per watt as T8s. That's why I asked. And yes, now that you've reiterated your claim, I will do the research. 

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Permalink Reply by Robert Jango on February 25, 2013 at 12:25am

Just did the research.

GE makes a T8 that gets 84 lumens per watt (32 watt/2700 lumens) and Spectralux makes a T5 that gets 80 lumens per watt (24 watt/2000 lumens. In other words, T8s and T5 are comparable. Thanks for wasting my time asshole Texas Ranger. And don't bother again with your peculiar...

whatever.  

A lot of people on this site have science backgrounds. Some of us even have PHDs.

Permalink Reply by LED on March 3, 2013 at 6:05am

remember that ONLY if t8 have electronic balasts do they then get comparable efficacy as t5 lights.  if the t8 has magnetic balasts then they suck and are NOT comparable with t5

 btw cree XM-L bin U2 LEDs running at 3.1 volts @1.5Amps wil produce over 120 Lumens per watt.... LEDs are the way to go.  I'm thinking of just scraping a premade LED fixture and make my own with cree XM-L cool and warm LEDs  to be able to run that at 10 watts each (which i would not do) is pretty awesome.

With a cree LED I would know that i could use that same mixture of LEDs for 10 years and still have 70% light output as if i just installed them.  Thats a far cry better than bridgelux, or ecogreen, or epistar or whatever crappy stuff thats out there (mind u yeah they're cheaper but they also burn out faster)

Permalink Reply by seth roach on October 11, 2012 at 8:31pm

t12s go big or go home. haha jk... but for real it just matters what your going for. i hear those fancy t5's are nice but you pay for em. t8 are cheap t12s are cheaper.....dont be scared to just stick with low light though lot of people on here are very into the high tech/light setups, from my experience they are a little slower to start... dont expect to be getting good growth within a month or maybe even two but once they start to get moving they can compete...also dont expect to grow babytears or a few other random "high-light plants" ive even given up on dwarf hair-grass its just to much of a constant battle....but good luck 

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Permalink Reply by Robert Jango on October 12, 2012 at 2:59am

10 to 30 lumens per square inch of surface area with a color temperature of about 6500. If you have low-light plants you might get away with as little 5 lumens psi of surface area. The type of lights you use don't matter as long as they fit the above parameters.

If you can get some sunlight to hit the tank I guarantee your plants will love it. 

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Permalink Reply by zach seibel on February 26, 2013 at 10:27pm

go cfl bulbs! forget that t5 crap too expensive and then you most likely need co2 system. in my opinion the less you spend the better

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