[Saltydog]

18" T8 vs. 24" T12 P&A bulb

Hello
I've been lurking here for months and this is my first post. All the ideas contained in these pages are very inspiring. Well, down to business:

Background. I have recently aquired a 45 gallon acrylic tank. Prior to aquiring the tank I had thought that it measured 48" inches long and I had started to plan my lighting based on this length. I thought that two 48" Sylvania P&A bulbs(I already scoped them out at Lowes), run off of one FulhamW5 or one Sylvania QT 4x32 would bring me to around 90-100watts or near 2wpg by overdriving x2. I Figured that would be plenty enough to grow low/moderate light plants but not require CO2 as I do not want a high maintanence setup.

But, I soon learned it was only a 36" tank. I thought shoot I don't even remember seeing any P&A bulbs in 36" length. So searching both Lowes and Home Depot I've come up with 2 options. I found that Lowes carrys the 24 inch 20w T12 P&A bulbs, with which I could run 4 bulbs 2 each in series. This would give me near the same as my original plan with the 48"F40T12's, but, I would have to space/overlap them within the hood(hassel). Then I found that Home Depot carries to my suprise 18" by 15watt T8 P&A bulbs. Two of these bulbs should fit nicely without overlap inside the canopy. If I run 4 bulbs, 2 each in series off of one ballast, I would only be getting i'm guessing 80-90watts, which is close but under 2wpg.

First, I know i've heard good things about the Sylvania T12 P&A bulb that Lowes carries, and that good results have been achieved using that bulb. My trip to Home depot was a very short one, so I didn't have time to exam the bulb there, but it is not made by sylvania, and I don't know any other specs for it. I'm going to assume it was the GE P&A bulb and I heard someone mention Lights of America T8 bulbs at Home Depot, but I wont know until I go back and look. I was suprised to find a T8 P&A bulb in the first place at home depot, becuase I was assuming that everyone running these lights was getting thier 18" F15T8s from the expensive rack at Petco.

1) If I were to choose this T8 would it be acceptable, or would it be wiser to stick with the Sylvania T12?

2) If I were to choose to go with 4 of the 15watt T8's, should I get 2 ballasts and run all four leads into 2 bulbs in series and shoot for around 120watts. Would this be too much light for what I want out of my set up. Is it bad to run near 3wpg without CO2? I'm trying for less maintanence.

3) I know that the FulhamW5 is a stronger ballast, but what is the difference bettween running the FulhamW5 and the Sylvania 4x32? Will the Fulham pump a little extra wattage out of the lights.

4) Is anyone aware of any one piece 36" lights that would be appropriate for this set up without having to spend an arm and a leg on lights from specialty websites or the expensive rack at the LFS.
Wow, this post got a little long. Sorry :icon_conf Is there any other possible ideas or setups that would work that I'm not aware of? Any and all suggestions and advice is greatly appriciated

Thanks,
Saltydog

 

[GulfCoastAquarian]

1) If I were to choose this T8 would it be acceptable, or would it be wiser to stick with the Sylvania T12?

The Sylvania/OSRAM Plant & Aquarium Gro-Lux bulbs are nice, but honestly, if it were me, I would just find a 36" T8 daylight bulb and be done with it. The Sylvania bulbs aren't good enough to warrant the extra complexity of wiring and mounting 18" bulbs in series.

2) If I were to choose to go with 4 of the 15watt T8's, should I get 2 ballasts and run all four leads into 2 bulbs in series and shoot for around 120watts. Would this be too much light for what I want out of my set up. Is it bad to run near 3wpg without CO2? I'm trying for less maintanence.

Without CO2, 3wpg could possibly be a situation begging for an algae problem. The nice thing about ODNO is that you could start out with only 2 wires connected (2xODNO), and then connect the rest if/when you decide to go with CO2 supplementation.
I think you'll be fine with 120 watts on your 45 gallon tank, though. Even without CO2. Just shoot for a shorter photoperiod around 8-10 hours.

3) I know that the FulhamW5 is a stronger ballast, but what is the difference bettween running the FulhamW5 and the Sylvania 4x32? Will the Fulham pump a little extra wattage out of the lights.

Yes, I believe so. Basically, the Workhose 5 is an four bulb electronic ballast with a slightly higher power factor. It is still rated at 128 watts, though (32w x 4).

4) Is anyone aware of any one piece 36" lights that would be appropriate for this set up without having to spend an arm and a leg on lights from specialty websites or the expensive rack at the LFS.

Just look for a daylight T8 36" bulb with a color rating greater than 5000K. They aren't exactly common, but you shouldn't have too much trouble finding one at a local lighting supply warehouse for around $5-$10 a piece. You'll probably have more luck picking up the yellow pages and finding a lighting supply store than the local Home Depot or Lowe's.

 

[imnappy2]

Electricity pull

Gulfcoast

I am just wondering how much more electricity the odno bulbs pull. I am running 6 bulbs all 2xodno. So do they all pull 1.5 the watts they power compared to just running a normal bulb. So they were like 32 watts and now they are like 48 watts. I am not quite sure how that pulls power now. So is that 48 watts per hour? Not exactly sure about that concept. Some insight into this would be wonderful.

 

[ksand]

Electricity Pull

I just ordered a device that measures power usage, and will post results. I want to compare NO vs CF vs ODNO vs T5. It'll be tough to get meaningful results, though, because you really have to measure the light output as well. Anyone out there know anything about measuring light output?

 

[GulfCoastAquarian]

ksand, the resulsts of those tests will be very interesting indeed, because in theory, 2xODNO draws twice the current but only provides 1 1/2x the output. 4xODNO draws four times the current but only provides 2x the output. Efficiency inside the bulb drops off - the ballast draws current based on the number of outputs you connect and the load they see.

In short - ODNO is probably one of the more "wasteful" forms of lighting since the bulbs do not operate at peak efficiency at these elevated levels. In the end, you have to calculate the total operating costs, including electricity, bulb replacement cost, initial equipment expense, etc.

 

[ksand]

Right. I'm skeptical about compact fluorescent's efficiency versus ODNO, since they both seem to run pretty hot, OTOH, anecdotal evidence (and vendors' claims) make me mighty curious about T5 (there's a thread on this forum on DIY T5 that I found really interesting). Ordered a 2x39W DIY setup from reefgeek, cost me $141 w/ shipping.

When I have some meaningful power-use data, I will certainly post it on this thread. Do you know of any reasonably-priced ways of measuring light? I've been using a digital camera, but would like something a little more "scientific".

Maybe this is a good one for the Myth-Busters? They seem to have a lot of cash to play around with.

 

[aquaverde]

Even a rudimentary light meter is expensive. Something really nice for this application would give spectral results, probably be out of sight for any of us financially, and if you did inherit a cool mil, hard to justify if only to answer occasional questions about aquarium light output.

Finding out the light output in lumens would enable calculation of efficiency, once you determine the power output. This would be very useful.

Finding out the total output, and its spectral breakdown, would give you the full picture, and be that much more useful. Unless you're attached to a university with that kind of equipment, the lumens solution is far better than nothing, and all you're likely to be able to do at best.

I don't know a meter to recommend, but there are others on the list who may. I'm afraid cost would be in the hundreds, though. Maybe someone will prove me wrong. Please.

 

[ksand]

Finding out the light output in lumens would enable calculation of efficiency, once you determine the power output. This would be very useful.

Yup, that's my goal. I'll probably start with my digital camera, which is a pretty good one, the Sony F717. Keeping the F-stop fixed at 8.0 and just reading the shutter speed will give me a relative measurement.

 

[Craigmax]

I think I need some help from those that can. I think I may have messed up something along the way here. I am using an extension cord (120 volts) cut as my power supply coupled with a pull chain switch to the neg and pos of the ballast. Is there a standard for power supplies? Every time I turn the unit off with the pull chain, I blow a breaker. What do you think could be the cause. Out of the ballast I have the neg/pos, 1 pair of red and 1 pair of blues and finally the pair of yellows. I put the reds on one end cap and the blues on one end cap of the same side and I put the yellows in one end and added a couple jumper wires from the yellow end cap to the other one for the second light. This is my test set up before I bolted everything down and it works. I must admit these lights are quite bright. Lights up the whole dining room plus the living room. I have not shut off the unit out of fear of blowing the breaker again. Should I have used another switch for on/off? Or did I wire something wrong? Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

 

[ascenta2]

I am in no way an electrician, but it sounds like you probably wired the switch incorrectly. Try unplugging the whole thing from the wall and then rewiring the switch so that it is inline with one of the power supply wires instead of crossing both the + and - at the ballast. Try wiring just one of the wires from the cut extension cord into one wire of the switch then connecting the other wire of the switch to the positive side only of the ballast. Good Luck :icon_bigg

edit..of course, the other wire of the extension cord would be directly connected to the negative terminal of the ballast to complete the circuit.

 

[BOTIA]

Hi Aquaverde
I have been using some T5 HO over my 70 now for 3 weeks( inconjunction with sylvanioa grolux.
I have witnessed explosive growth with the two T5's (54watt) and three grolux(40watt). My tank iscompletley overgrown with cabomba which had started out with 6 stems 2 months ago.
Here are some specs for the T5's
Ge starcoat 6500k
5000 lumens!
54watts
93 lumens per watt
I am very impressed so far. I am not even using reflectors yet. But I will get some eventually.
Hope this helps
Botia

Even a rudimentary light meter is expensive. Something really nice for this application would give spectral results, probably be out of sight for any of us financially, and if you did inherit a cool mil, hard to justify if only to answer occasional questions about aquarium light output.

Finding out the light output in lumens would enable calculation of efficiency, once you determine the power output. This would be very useful.

Finding out the total output, and its spectral breakdown, would give you the full picture, and be that much more useful. Unless you're attached to a university with that kind of equipment, the lumens solution is far better than nothing, and all you're likely to be able to do at best.

I don't know a meter to recommend, but there are others on the list who may. I'm afraid cost would be in the hundreds, though. Maybe someone will prove me wrong. Please.

 

[aquaverde]

Proof of the pudding's in the eating. That's some intense lighting, and it goes to show what Sam and some others have been saying about intensity being more important than spectrum- that bulb doesn't have the red spike you normally look for.

 

[ksand]

Actual Power Usage

I got a device called a "Kill-aWatt", which anyone can get at Dr Foster & Smith. It measures power consumption over time. Here are the results for my 2 ODNO setups:

This arrangement of two GE electronic ballasts driving two 4-foot 32 Watt T8's draws 140 Watts (1.13A). Each lamp is rated at 2,550 lumens, and light meter measurments show the ouput doubling, so this setup yields 10,200 lumens.

So for 4X ODNO you can't just multiply the 32-Watts times four, at least not for the GE ballasts. If you read GE's own literature, they talk about "Active Current Regulation", which limits the current to the the other three lamps if one of the lamps should fail (remember, this ballast is supposed to drive four lamps). So when you hook up all four output leads to a single lamp, you are probably causing the electronic ballast to adjust the current downwards, so the circuit consumes less power, yet you still get the doubling of light output that 4X ODNO gives you. :bounce:

This setup draws 60 Watts (actually, 59). Here we have 4X ODNO driving two 15-Watt lamps in series. When I measured the light output with this setup, I found the gain to more than double, actually 150%. So with four GE "Sunshine" lamps rated at 620 lumens yoiu get 4 x 620 x 150% or 3,720 lumens for your 60 Watts.

This is good news for ODNO users. You are getting far better efficiency than you think. You can't just multiply the Watts by 4 (for 4XODNO), the power consumption is far less than that.

 

[GulfCoastAquarian]

Fascinating info, ksand. So, in summary:
F32T8 Normal output efficiency = 2550 lumens / 32 watts = 80 lumens/watt
F32T8 4xODNO efficiency = 10,200 lumens / 140 watts = 73 lumens/watt

That is assuming the ballast does actually draw 32 watts in a normal configuration. (Could you double check that?). The ODNO is somewhat less efficient for a F32T8 tube, but not nearly as much as I suspected.

Also, for the 18" bulbs...
F15T8 normal output efficiency = 620 lumens / 15 watts = 41 lumens/watt
F15t8 series 4xODNO efficiency = 3720 lumens / 59 watts = 63 lumens/watt

Now that is a shocker! The system still isn't as efficient as the F32T8 bulb, but it's still significantly more efficient than the standard configuration! The small bulb obviously likes to be driven at higher temperatures.

 

[ksand]

...That is assuming the ballast does actually draw 32 watts in a normal configuration. (Could you double check that?)....

Sure, the next time I take the fixture apart, which will be in the next few weeks or so.

One thing I noticed is that the power consumed does fluctuate a bit, so it's best to leave the thing on for while to get an average power consumption over, say, a 10-hour period.

Do you use a "sleep period" in your 11-hour photo-period as an algae-inhibiting measure?

 

[GulfCoastAquarian]

I would definitely try to get an average over a few minutes. It could mean a difference on the order of 10% and higher so it's worth considering it.

And no - I don't use a "sleep period". 11 hours straight.

 

[wazza_77]

overwhelmed

okies, a bit confused

situation : nano tank fanatic[space is limited]

desired size : 5 Gallon [maximum], my new 2.5G leaks, going for a 5G as a replacement

confusion issue :

excluding the fact everything here is 240 volt 35 amp, i need an electronic ballast capable of running 2 or 4 tubes. do the ballasts vary depending on the targetted bulbs[ie. 2 foot tubes, a ballast of X size, 4 foot ballast of XX size]? I want to stick to shorter bulbs to fit over my tank, finding them will be one challenge, but working out what sort of ballast i'll need will be the other. ADVICE ???


Thanks ppl

 

[ksand]

..., but working out what sort of ballast i'll need will be the other. ADVICE ???

The GE and Sylvania ballasts have information printed right on the ballast. For example, the Sylvania says F32, F25, F17, F40, which means that the ballast will drive lamps of 32 Watts, 25 Watts, etc.

 

[75sausage]

Yeah, I suppose it is a bit of a 'Tim Allen' thing. It's not isolated to just planted aquariums for me, either. I modify my cars, my computers, everything, just to try to get the most I can out of them.

lol, DITTO!

 

[GulfCoastAquarian]

lol, DITTO!

That's most likely why you're here, haha. Birds of a feather...