# Lighting Suggestion for a 36 X 18 inch footprint tank



## bbjai (May 10, 2014)

Hi I've been going back and forth on whether to go with a four bulb t5ho fixture vs a finnex ray2 ds 

My worry is that the finnex will not cover the entire footprint of the tank meaning i might have to buy two finnex fixtures instead. Does anyone have any experience with this light fixture?


----------



## TropTrea (Jan 10, 2014)

Yes with an a single strip of LED light you would only cover an area of roughly 10". Not knowing your tank size if it is 13" front to back then one light would be borderline. If it is 18" front to back two would be ideal, but if it 24" inches then three would be recommended.

But the other factor is the total wattage and the efficiency of the LED's they are using. Assuming it is a 36" long tank like a 30 Gallon tank then the 29 watts of a single strip are workable with the exception that it is a 7,000K fixture so you might need more light on the red end of the spectrum. 

For the price of this fixture you could build your own and have a better bearing on what your getting. For a 30 gallon tank, 8 LED's at $6.00 each would be the equivelent plus the driver at $26 and the aluminum channeling and wire adding another $20.00 So you could build it for around $94.00.

Note going with 4 39 watt HO T-5's would be over 150 Watts and for LED's you would need at least 75 Watts of power to get something equivalent, with the highest quality components. So the HO T-5's would be much more powerful than 1 28 watt LED fixture.


----------



## AaronT (Apr 26, 2004)

I have no experience with the Finnex fixtures, but if you do go the T5 route make sure to get a fixture that allows you to use 2 bulbs or 4 bulbs as you may find you only need 2 bulbs on most of the time. 

With my ATI Sunpower 4 x 39 watt fixture I get 80-90 PAR at the substrate with only 2 bulbs on and the fixture 8" above the top of the tank. That's on an ADA 90-P.


----------



## bbjai (May 10, 2014)

Thank you all for the responses it was of great help 

@aaronT :O thats the same dimensions of a tank i wanna get :twisted:


----------



## TropTrea (Jan 10, 2014)

Another big downplay I'm finding with HO T-5 bulbs is getting the right bulb combination for a fresh water planted tank. Most Commercial Aquarium bulbs for these are designed for salt water tanks and are too heavy in the blue end of the spectrum and run low on the red end of the spectrum. 

I presently have a 4 Bulb fixture on one of my 30 gallon breeder tanks but I'm only using two bulbs and a diatomic filter. The bulb combo I'm using is a GE 6,500K and an ATI purple plus. I tried a half dozen other combo's and this has worked the best but it is still strong in the blue end and gives me a lot of algea issues.


----------



## AaronT (Apr 26, 2004)

TropTrea said:


> Another big downplay I'm finding with HO T-5 bulbs is getting the right bulb combination for a fresh water planted tank. Most Commercial Aquarium bulbs for these are designed for salt water tanks and are too heavy in the blue end of the spectrum and run low on the red end of the spectrum.
> 
> I presently have a 4 Bulb fixture on one of my 30 gallon breeder tanks but I'm only using two bulbs and a diatomic filter. The bulb combo I'm using is a GE 6,500K and an ATI purple plus. I tried a half dozen other combo's and this has worked the best but it is still strong in the blue end and gives me a lot of algea issues.


My all-time favorite 2 bulb T5HO combo is a Giesseman midday and aqua flora.


----------



## walzon1 (Feb 24, 2014)

2 ray2 would be way better than t5HO. I have finnex ray2, t-5HO, and current-usa freshwater plus and finnex is the best by far. Great penetrataion vs. t-5, better output than current F. plus, gives nice shimmer effect, low wattage, and low heat. LED's are 120 degree output so they cover 12-13 inches easily 1 would be medium light for no co2 and 2 you would need co2 I would say it is very high lighting reeally a great bang for your buck. I did a DIY LED and basically modeled it after the finnex because the LEDs they use are IMO superior to any Budget LED fixture. They don't compare to fixtures using 1 or 3 watt LED's but that's not really needed in a planted tank anyhow.


----------



## TropTrea (Jan 10, 2014)

walzon1 said:


> did a DIY LED and basically modeled it after the finnex because the LEDs they use are IMO superior to any Budget LED fixture. They don't compare to fixtures using 1 or 3 watt LED's but that's not really needed in a planted tank anyhow.


I would say that is also dependent on how efficient you want the fixture to be. The newer LED chips are surpassing 140 lums per wat but are only available in the higher wattage. With the old 1 Watt LED getting half that amount of light per watt was a rarity. Also keep in mind that while you might be running 24 1/2 watt LED's for 12 Watts you can get that same amount of lighting now using 4 5 Watt LED's but scaling there power back to run on at only 3 Watts each.

On a single small tank this might not be that important. But with someone like me running multiple tanks a savings of $2.00 per month on each tank the electrical bill multiplies real fast as you multiply that by the number of tanks your running.


----------

