# Aquaz T5 54watt Tubes



## shewey (Jun 19, 2006)

Hi all,

Has anyone ever used the Aquaz T5 tubes? If so i'd liek to get any feedback as to whether they are any good or not. I am thinking of 2x10k and 2x6.5k for my tank.

Cheers,
Mark


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## gnatster (Mar 6, 2004)

I can't say much on the 6.5K but the 10K is not a decent spectrum for plants.

See Graph:


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## gnatster (Mar 6, 2004)

I spoke to soon, found a graph on the 6.5K


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## Craig Tarvin (Jul 26, 2005)

gnatster said:


> I can't say much on the 6.5K but the 10K is not a decent spectrum for plants.
> 
> See Graph:


I don't know what your graph says, but my plants have never had a problem with 10,000k.


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## shewey (Jun 19, 2006)

I have no idea what that graph means either. 

...but I did hear than many people with 4 bulb setups use a combination of 6400k and 10000k to get a good range. The ADA bulbs are 8000k after all and this way I get that as the average. I'm not sure if it works that way though.

Regads,
Mark


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## mintygreen (May 25, 2005)

Hi Shewey,

I using those exact lamps, they seem to work well, but to my eyes they appear to have a green tint.

I could be bias though, as i've been using T8 aquarelles for the last 5 years and they're closer to 10,000K.


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## gnatster (Mar 6, 2004)

Plants absorb light at the 430 and 662 nm. Bulbs that lack that range will not grow plants well. The graph shows peaks in those areas and in theory grow plants well. K values do not reveal if a bulb will grow plants well. Different bulbs from different manufactures with the same K can have different spectrums.


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## shewey (Jun 19, 2006)

Thanks for the info Gnatster.

Mintygreen thanks for letting me know they are working ok for you. I am finding the choices for T5 bulbs quite restricted here in Australia so I don't have many other options.

Regards,
Mark.


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## mintygreen (May 25, 2005)

I hear ya shewey,

I got the Aquaz T5's because they were available and well priced, the frustrating thing is i know some lighting suppliers and they aren't sure of the cost or availability.

If you are interested in the T5 Aquarelles (at aquaz prices), there is a well known online reef store in QLD expecting a shipment soon.


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## ShaneSmith (Feb 15, 2004)

There is absolutly nothing wrong with the spectrum of the 10k for growing plants. For My t5 kit i use 3 giessman 6k bulbs, 2 ATI aquablue, and 1 UVI 10k.... If i could do it again i would use 3 aquablue and 3 UVI 10k. Much better look and the UVI 10k is actually a pink bulb that complements the blue bulbs much better than 6k.


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## ruki (Jul 4, 2006)

Most plants are pretty adaptive, so they will grow under many lighting conditions. It's all about the reds and blues.
* With just reds or just blues they will grow a little bit.
* If you give them both the reds and blues that they can use, they will grow better.
* If you get rid of the colors that plants don't use (i.e. green), more energy will be sent into the reds and blues that plants use resulting in even better growth.

From the above three points, we can make some predictons:

A 10K tube (that has lots of blues) mixed with a tube with more reds should result in better growth than two 10K tubes.

The spectrum shown above has a huge green spike. This energy is wasted on plants. It's consuming watts that could be better spent on reds and blues that the plants can photosynthesize with. Another 10K tube without such a huge green spike would grow plants faster than a tube with the spectrum chart with the big green spike.

Special note on the green spike. This is probably caused by a mercury emission. It's in all tubes since mercury vapor is used for the plasma. Better tubes contain phosphors that minimize the green relative to the reds and blues.

Special note on green and the human eye. Our eyes are sensitive to green, so a cheap way to make for a bright tube is to take advantage of the mercury emission line as long as you don't care much for the color rendition of the tube. If you want good color rendition/balance you want the balance the red, blue and green since we have red, blue and green cones in our eyes.


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