January Group Buy / General Lighting Questions

[duijver]

Hi Everyone,

Well, after 2 weeks or so of somewhat clean water it seems like the red cyano is slowly creeping back. Since the only change is that I added the 2nd 50/50 bulb into the equation, with the original timer cycle, it seems like the lighting is highly suspect.

At the very least I'm going to pick up a few new bulbs on the group buy, since I am only using 36" lights, but since I have 2x96 50/50's I'm looking at about $70/$80 for every 6 months. By the way, the current lighting kit is a Coralife 36 Inch Aqualight. I can't seem to find any good research, after an hour of searching, but I seem to remember people saying that T5's last longer than PC lights? Is this true? If so, i'm guessing that over the long run it would be cheaper to buy something like this? http://www.premiumaquatics.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=CU-USA01152&Category_Code=Current-T5.

Also, in hopes of increasing overall flow on my 47g tall tank (12"x36"x24") I was going to replace two or three of my older 160gph with one or two Hydor KORALIA 2. Does the 2 seem like the right fit?

Thanks guys! I appreciate the feedback and Happy Holidays!

 

[ds4x4]

I would think that it is more water quality problems then the lighting.. I have a brand new Nova Extreme with 10K and Pure Actinic and have a green algae and red cyano out break, a 5 gal water change had halted it in it's tracks. Now it's started to creep back so something is different in my setup so the only choice to rid it is a water change for me.

 

[duijver]

Anything is possible, but I feel that it's unlikely that water quality. Since users recommended water parms originally (1-1 1/2 months)I've done 3 - 50% water changes followed by 20%-30% water changes each week after. I'm very religious about insuring its done. So, the only difference, this time, is the increased lighting from 1x96 to 2x96 watts.

Water wise: PPM is 0 and the typhoon III RO/DI is only a few months old. I make water at about 28-30 gals at a time and it sits for at least a day and recently I've had the water churning for days or weeks before using it.

How about the working life of the T5 bulbs?

 

[Hawkeye]

This is not my research - but according to Ash (who I think retired from icecap) - T5s when driven by an electronic icecap ballast will last anywhere from 12 ~ 24 mths.

 

[panmanmatt]

This is not my research - but according to Ash (who I think retired from icecap) - T5s when driven by an electronic icecap ballast will last anywhere from 12 ~ 24 mths.

T5's used on an Ice Cap ballast are good for 8-10 months tops. The IC ballasts over drive them and greatly shorten their lifespan. T5's on a regular T5 ballast are good for 12-18 months.

 

[jtravapd]

hey, i know everyones tank is different, but i had red algea building up all over my tank for like 5 months..i could not figure out what it was..i upgraded my skimmer, basically turned off the lights, almost starved my fish, and increased water flow all over. i was about to give up...my sump is like 40 gallons and was filled with bio balls...i replaced the bio balls with rubble rock and within two weeks the algea was gone and never returned...its been over a year...just something to try, i dont know if you have bio balls or not, but if you do get rid of them asap and see if it helps you out...it did for me..