Too Blue?

[Freon]

How do you think this would look on a freshwater planted 90 gallon? It's the only 4 bulb t5 setup I can find for the price. My concern is too much of a blue tint.I will have low to medium light plants with eventual co2.http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...1&pcatid=16771

[fishsandwitch]

Those have no reflectors and you would need to replace the bulbs. They are cheap for a reason. They suck. Look into catalina instead http://www.catalinaaquarium.com/prod...oducts_id=1423

they will change out the bulbs fo free I hear

[DiscusIt'sWhats4DinneR]

Originally Posted by Freon

How do you think this would look on a freshwater planted 90 gallon? It's the only 4 bulb t5 setup I can find for the price. My concern is too much of a blue tint.I will have low to medium light plants with eventual co2.http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...1&pcatid=16771

you dont want to pay too much huh?

you dont need to spend a dollar per watt for lighting. What if i said you could set up something that will give you the same results, but only cost about $70 dollars?

when i was shopping for lighting i looked at all sorts of 300 dollar stuff when i stumbled upon this article.

http://www.geocities.com/teeley2/overdrv1.html


So, heres sunday's shopping list for you and your trip to home depot, and a recipe for a killer lighting system.

1.Find the cheap 48" dual tube shoplight fixtures. buy the cheapest ones they have. you wont be using the ballasts from inside the fixture.

2. find the electronic ballasts. get 2 sylyania quicktronic 4x32t8 ballasts, (or 2 advance rel 4x32t8 ballasts.)

3. grab a timer and a 3 outlet adapter if you dont have one already.

4. choice of bulbs is all up to you. i use 2 4300k bulbs, one 6500k, and 1 8000k all glass brand bulb to cast a color that is appealing to me, but you can mix and match anything that suits your taste.


buy or build a canopy to mount these in. otherwise i just cut 1/4" acrylic strips about 4 inches wide and about 11 inches long (that is the inside width of the rim on my 55 gal tank) and i laid these on the edges so that the lights can lay over the top of the tank without the dangers of them falling in or any water splashes to the endcaps. i did this before i bought a canopy, and i still use the acrylic to protect from splashes and so that i dont have to mount the lights to anything. the canopy just slips over the whole thing.

that is what i use. it works great and you dont have to spend a lot.
i run mine a 2x odno.
soon im going to get my hands on 2 more ballasts and run the 4 bulbs a 4x odno and see what happens im gonna get a tan just sitting near the tank

[ColeMan]

Overdriven fluorescents are truly impressive; one thing to remember, however, is that overdriven lamps produce much, much more heat than standard fluorescent bulbs. For this reason, it will be necessary to include in the aforementioned list of materials to purchase a fan, perhaps one like this http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...68&pcatid=3868 (this one's nice because it has a temp. probe so the fan doesn't run unless it's needed, even though with ODT5 it will probably be on all the time)! Failure to adequately cool your bulbs may lead to premature ballast failure and decreased bulb life. Otherwise, it's a great option.

[DiscusIt'sWhats4DinneR]

Originally Posted by ColeMan

Overdriven fluorescents are truly impressive; one thing to remember, however, is that overdriven lamps produce much, much more heat than standard fluorescent bulbs. For this reason, it will be necessary to include in the aforementioned list of materials to purchase a fan, perhaps one like this http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...68&pcatid=3868 (this one's nice because it has a temp. probe so the fan doesn't run unless it's needed, even though with ODT5 it will probably be on all the time)! Failure to adequately cool your bulbs may lead to premature ballast failure and decreased bulb life. Otherwise, it's a great option.

wont hurt the ballast at all but bulb life would be noticably decreased. at 3 dollars a bulb.. this is no big worry.
my lfs sells fans like that that are about 25 dollars although they arent temp sensitive.

at 2x overdriven the added heat doesnt bother much and the bulbs can still last almost as long. i have been running mine this way for months without problems. when i get more ballasts and go 4x overdrive i will probably buy one of these fans to give some airflow in the canopy, timered with the lights. otherwise i think too much heat may build up under there.

[ColeMan]

I guess you're right about the ballast..but since you're not operating the ballast within the manufacturer's guidelines, any warranty you have would be voided. Also,, there's been some talk on this thread http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/li...-question.htmlabout the increased temperatures producing a potential fire hazard from wire insulation melting and so on...Of course, this problem is not limited to overdriven fixtures, but with the extra heat generated it can be assumed that it is more likely to happen, however slight that chance may be.

[Freon]

Thanks for the responses guys. I will certainly consider a DYI setup but my question regarding the blue looking tank was never answered. The lighting issue by far has been THE most confusing part of picking components for my set up. Everyone seems to have opinions that differ quite a bit. On one post I'm told to stay away from the fixture I am asking about because it doesn't have reflectors and the Do it youself suggestion would involve a regular shop fixture which I doubt has any such reflector. Or does it? Anyway, I will make a journey to the Depot and check it out. Now if you excuse me I'm going to go shove a pencil in my eyeball.

[cheesehead]

What do you want to do with your tank? Grow low-light plants? High-light? Just have some plants hanging around? Let us know what you want to do and you can get some better advice.

The fixture you chose will be very blue, but somewhat workable. You can replace the actinics for about $50. Some have said that the intense blue encourages algae, and depending upon the lights the plant "greens" may look ugly. Having no reflectors means that not very much of the light will get into the tank. That might be a problem only depending upon how much light you need.

The DIY with overdriven normal fluorescent bulbs will probably work. But T12's are inefficient relative to T5's, you'll put out a lot of heat. And since your original question was "how would the fixture look over a planted 90", unless your building skills are much better than mine, I'd say that the T12 DIY option could look horrible. (I'll also say that replacing the T12 bulbs every couple of months will end up being a pain in the a$$ - here I have to pay a buck a bulb to recycle them.)

The weird thing about bulbs is that it's all in the reflectors. A good two-bulb strip with good reflectors might put more light into your tank than a four-bulb strip with no reflectors. And it's easier to get good reflectors for t5.

I'm not familiar with the catalina mentioned, but it could put twice as much light into the tank for less than twice the $$ - I see that they have a two-light strip for $125. But is it enough light for what you want to do?

If you want DIY... I'm going to be doing a retrofit with the t5 kits from www.reefgeek.com, which I'd recommend over the overdriven T12's. If you use the Icecap 2-bulb very high output, each bulb is overdriven to about 80 W. Since they've got decent reflectors, they'll probably put twice as much light in your tank as the fixture you selected. Even the two-bulb not overdriven ($159) would likely deliver more light.

But - bottom line - 1) how comfortable are you with looking at a DIY canopy and 2) what do you want kind of plants/fish do you want for the tank? And keep the pencil away from the remaining eye.

[DiscusIt'sWhats4DinneR]

Nobody ever said anything about using t12s.
as for the canopy
i said buy one or build one... i bought mine. its an all glass brand. 100 dollars.
some people are good with woodworking and would rather build their own.

i meant to include to use t8 bulbs.
the shoplights i use have a reflector that works efficiently. if i pulled off the canopy almost none of the light will go on the walls. it stays directed into the tank where it belongs.


anyway these shoplights wont be in a sleek black housing but nobody is going to mind if youre covering it with a canopy anyway.

the bulbs will last almost as long as normal output bulbs. you wont be replacing them every couple months.

it is illegal to throw fluorescent tubes in the recycle or garbage.

you can stick them in the can and break them down with a shovel and throw stuff on top, or you can do it the right way and take them to a recycle center. i think disposal of these bulbs does not need to be a big concern. dont forget...T5's are still illegal in the trash can.

[Freon]

Thanks Mr. Cheese. The retrofit kits look like a possibilty. My question about those is what kind of housing do you put them and how do they sit on your glass top? or do they hang? As far as what I am going to do with the tank, I want enough light to do most plants. (which I know very little about at the moment). I am starting with plants for newbies. Something that's hard to kill. (suggestions anyone?) I'm getting Aqua soil for substrate and a Co2 set up. Will have Discus,cardinal tetras and clown loaches for starters. I want lighting that does not put obvious color out like,pink,blue or yellowish daytime light. Based on what I have read the 1000k looks like something I would try or the 6500.

[DiscusIt'sWhats4DinneR]

pretty much any bunch plants will grow like crazy under bright light. the cool thing is that these reproduce by cuttings meaning that any peice you cut from the plant can grow into a new plant.


anubias are hard to kill but grow agonizingly slow. just dont bury the rhizome. (where all the stems come together and the roots start) it will just die.

java fern is good.


swords are good and fairly easy, vallissinera will grow out of control under high light and co2

go to aquariumplants dot com and look around. they dont charge much for shipping.
i prefer to order plants online because it is much much cheaper and you can find almost anything you want.

6500k has a weird turquoise tint to it.
you would want an 8000k bulb or something close.
or a combination of bulbs.

whatever you end up doing if you are making mass amounts of light youre going to need to use a co2 system of some sort... or you will not have a planted tank. just an algae farm. co2 becomes a necessity with enough light.

[Freon]

Thanks Discus. As far as Co2 goes,how long will a bottle last (on average). I am looking at a semi-automatic rig on DrsfosterSmith.

[DiscusIt'sWhats4DinneR]

i bought the semi auto kit about 6 months ago. the only thing in that kit that i still use is the regulator/solenoid/needle valve assembly and the timer. the glass diffuser is very fragile and the guys that work at ups or fedex are usually not concerned with handling packages carefully. they sort them, tossing them onto conveyor belts and stacking them and so forth. anyway, my glass diffuser arrived broken, but i superglued it back together. it worked for a while. the bubble counter is...junk. pressure from the diffuser builds up in the line causing it to leak. i couldnt get it to stop so i eliminated it and just dipped the line in the tank water to set the bubble count.

the regulator in the kit is a decent one. however there are many other options out there. i would search around the net. i use a dazs glass spiro bubble counter now. it is an ada clone that looks awesome and is cheap, and it cannot leak because it is made of 100% glass.

it all depends on what size co2 tank you get. i use a 20 lb tank because that is what was available to me. they can probably last a year and a half - two years or longer. dont buy a bottle on the net. check what is locally available. look in the yellow pages and call places. if all fails you can go to any liquor store that rents kegs. they should also rent 20lb co2 tanks, but bear in mind that you will need to place a deposit on any tank that you rent from anywhere.

[lauraleellbp]

I've got one of the Catalina Solar fixtures over my 90gal and I love it. I got it off of Ebay from Mango277 and IMO it's superior to the Marineland fixture you originally were looking at. (Looks like the price has gone up some since I bought mine, however?)

As far as the bulbs go, I replaced one of the actinics with a Hagen 18k Glo (despite the apparent kelvin rating, the bulb is pink and has some nice peaks in the spectrum for plant growth), and I'm also going to replace one of the 10k bulbs with a Giesmann 6000k... these replacements are just for aesthetic reasons b/c the fixture as-is was growing plants quite well. My tank is lowlight/low tech, however.

The actinics won't support FW plant growth, but IMO that they cause algae issues is a myth. I'm keeping one actinic personally b/c I don't want too much wattage over my tank plus I like the way they bring out the blues in fish.