For my 55 gallon ram biotope:

TrueLumen Pro LED StripLights | Current-USA

SHO, CFL Aquarium Lights, Compact Fluorescent; Hydroponics Lighting, Lamps, Bulbs

Or...

Nova Extreme 4XT5HO | Current-USA

What do you guys think?

LEDs would be my choice but they would run about $500 for 2 strips, a 60 Watt power supply, and a splitter. I might be able to slim that down by fabbing my own power supply and splitter (I'm an EE major).

SHO would be the middle ground (~$300) but I question their effectiveness as far as quality of light emitted, lifetime of the bulbs, and energy usage (I don't want to run up my power bill).

Nova Extreme 48" T5HO (2x54Watt) would be the cheapest (~$200 after the right bulbs & shipping). But will this suffice (108 Watts)? I can also get 4x54Watt at $350

Thanks for any and all input.

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Officially fishless until after the move....tune in later for details!

Lowes.

They sell SHO bulbs at Lowe's, but I'm not sure how much they cost. I would do shop lighting, but I'm not a big T12 and T8 fan. Too poor of quality on the light, and it would drive my power bill through the roof.

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Officially fishless until after the move....tune in later for details!

Ahhh....but....options galore.

vanity light with CFL. Big light source, cheap, energy efficient and not to mention asthedtically eye pleasing to boot.

;o)

What type of bulbs though? SHO is built specifically for hydroponics so I'm guessing they're good for aquariums also (my source claims that). Bathroom vanity lights sound like a good bet, especially because they probably need to be humidity-resistant

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Officially fishless until after the move....tune in later for details!

2X54W T5HO is more likely too much for a 55g, unless elevated above the tank.

It will be elevated above the tank. It is 18" deep (same as my 29G XH) as well, and my 29 gets low light at the substrate level.

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Regular CFL bulbs.

Is that a 55? Also, is that a DIY mount? Looks like the front part actually hangs into the tank.

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Officially fishless until after the move....tune in later for details!

Yep. Mount is affixed to the back of the stand. Asthetics. ;o)

Assuming for the 29g, that means if you measured that with your Lux meter, this would be why Lux is not used to obtain PAR. It is ballpark at best. Or, you have some really poor quality reflectors in your light. If that is the case, I would not buy the same brand again. Even with a poor reflector, you would be very high medium light with 2X24W. If they are not so bad, you're into high light no matter how you add it up. Assuming a 2" mount above tank.

55s are normally 21" deep...even deeper than a 75g. With 2" above the tank mount, 2" high substrate, decent reflectors you would be right on the line of high light. Depending on where you want to be for lighting....either way if 2X54W is not enough then don't elevate it.

I agree, Lux meters are tough to work with. However, I've got some good conversion factors for my bulbs, and I'm assuming the majority of the light is in the PAR range (otherwise, they wouldn't be advertised for FW planted tanks).

I've noticed with my tank that plants grow slowly at the substrate level, but when they hit the upper water column they take off. What's more, the stem plants like wisteria and hygro shed their leaves in the bottom 1/2 of the tank, indicating they're not getting enough light.

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Officially fishless until after the move....tune in later for details!

There are a number of things that could cause lower leaves to fall off. Inadequate CO2, nutrient problem (lack of something), are where I would look at. Plants speed up as they get taller in nearly any tank. Think of the plant as a PAR sensor and move it from the bottom to the top of the water column and watch it go up. You need to to go TPT and read the thread on low light. Amazing what one member is doing with what would maybe be very low medium light and pressurized CO2.

I was using pressurized CO2 on borderline drop checker yellow (though, I wasn't using pure 4dKH solution). I think it might have been nutrient deficiency, because my plants did have very overdeveloped root systems and I wasn't dosing fertz (after nearly killing all my RCS accidentally, I decided my plants could go by the wayside for awhile).

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Officially fishless until after the move....tune in later for details!

Just found a 48" 4 bulb 216 Watt T5HO fixture from Sky Enterprises USA for $100 with LED moonlights, and found the right bulbs for $10 each (6700K).

I think I'm gonna go with that. 4 WPG of T5 might be a tad high, but the fixture has controllers for the bulbs in sets of 2, so I could only run 108 Watts over my tank if algae gets bad.

Amazon.com: New 48" 216W T5 Aquarium Light Fixture Reef Fish Tank Light: Pet Supplies

Simply Pet Supplies. Coralife T5 High Output Lamp 6.7K 48 Inch

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Officially fishless until after the move....tune in later for details!

It didnt look like it would be very easy to elevate, but hard to say with those pics. A lot of people will do hi-pwr/lo-pwr mix with their lighting periods. Run 1-2 hours on high and then the rest of the period on low.

I just bought a PAR meter today. If I decide to let others use it (very expensive), maybe you can play around with it and your light to get what you want.

That would be awesome

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Officially fishless until after the move....tune in later for details!

I have a JBJ CF fixture that is similar it is 48" 4x65 watt 6500 K bulbs and I have 80 watts of NOF on my 150 tall. I don't yet have a CO2 system. I have a good mixed substrate. I have med to high light plants and everything is growing well. At first I had trouble with black hair algae,then I cut the lights back to 8 hrs. a day instead of 12. It took 4-6 weeks for that to go away and now everything is fine. I use the same dry fert that a couple of members here use and iron I dose both 1 time a month. I have some telanthera that started about 1-1/2" tall (10 stems) and had dull red leaves and now they are 5" tall and have 3 times as many stems as when I planted them and the leaves are cardinal red. The sunset hygro started with white/silver veins running threw the leaves and now they are bright pink. There are some pics from a few month's ago on my gallery I will post some new ones as soon as I find the cord to my camera.

I'm looking to replacing teh T5 fixture over my little frag tank with LEDs, and this looks like a nice cheap option.




retrofit led

IMO the LED's are outrageous and they are like cell phones and TV's,as soon as you invest a ton of money on the latest one somebody comes out with the next "Great solution"