[justinq]

Has anyone here tried Coralife's T5NO light fixtures? If so, do they grow plants well? Did you replace the colormax bulb with something else?

I'm still trying to decide on lighting for my 54 gallon bowfront. It's going to be high tech, but low light. I originally wanted to go with T5HO, but it doesn't seem likely that I'll get low light with that. Also, unlike with T5HO, I can get a 30" fixture that has 30" bulbs, instead of 24" bulbs. I'm wondering about the quality of the light for these. I would probably get one 30" fixture and one 24", which would only give me 64 watts.

And now for my stupid question: Is it possible to run T5HO bulbs in a T5NO fixture assuming I don't care about them actually being HO? Obviously this would only be an option with the 24" fixture if it's possible at all, I'm just wondering how much I can play with bulb variety, or if I'll be stuck with Coralife bulbs only if I do this.

 

[talontsiawd]

They are very popular here. Countless members have them and are happy. I have 3 over one tank as I slowly upgraded my lights and didn't want to invest in a new fixture every time.

I don't know if you can use HO bulbs but I don't think you can.

I am trying to find alternative bulbs but coralife does have the full spectrum, 6500k and 10,000k so you have a few choices/combinations just from their own bulbs.

 

[gheitman]

I have a couple of the Coralife freshwater T5NO fixtures (36" over 30 gallon, 30" over 20 gallon long) and have been very happy with the results. I kept the original bulbs they shipped with and replace them with new ones every year. You can't put T5HO bulbs in a T5NO fixture because the ballast that is installed can't handle it.

 

[jkcole]

i have 7 coralife no fixtures 2 on my 55 2 on my 40 breeder 2 on my 25 and 1 on my 29. all duel freshwater and doin great. i had 1 problem with a 36 inch one but thats it just had to replace it. other than that works great and i assume will last a while and will have no more problems when i hang the lights ablve the tanks instead of sitting 2 inches above the water.

 

[justinq]

Thanks everyone. Another question for those who have one of these fixtures: How wide are they? I'm wondering if I could maybe fit one 30" and two 24" fixtures on the top of my tank, but I'd have to know how wide they are and none of the websites give anything but length. Also, I was wondering about the brightness factor, even though they are NO. 1 30" and 1 24" would give me 64 watts, but if I added another 24" fixture that would give me 92 watts. That would still be less than 2 WPG, but because these are t5's I'm not sure if that still applies. I read someone saying that these lights still looked twice as bright as a Coralife PC of similar size. Any truth to that?

 

[lauraleellbp]

They're only about 4" wide, nice and slim and more than enough room for 2 fixtures.

How wide is your tank? I've got one over my 46 bowfront and the plants in front do get shaded. In your shoes I'd probably go with 2 fixtures and just run the smaller one for a shorter photoperiod if it turns out to be a bit much.