I have not said the T-5 is a bad lighting system. For the majority of marine aquarium keepers the T-% is probably the best purchase considering prices ans performance. The T-% can be a good system with individual reflectors for each bulb, with small distances between the water and the bulbs, with depths medium to shallow and with good bulbs. Like reeffreak said there are 100's of bulbs made for T-5's. However people should still be made aware that they still lack the intensity of Halide which makes water clarity, limited surface agitation of water and depth important issues that can be more ignored with halides. I do not advocate the halides so that someone can run cloudy water and run waves the length of their tanks though. I do warn people new to the trade that do not know whether the are going to later want intense lighting due to deep tanks and SPS corals that they might be disappointed with T-5 performance. To be honest most people with just live rock, fish and a few assorted corals in tanks of around 40 gallon and smaller could easily get a long well enough with NO fluorescents. GARF runs what they call "bullet proof" 55 gallon tank set ups loaded with assorted corals on just NO fluorescents. They do use plenums in their tanks which cuts water depth. I believe they just use 4 NO fluorescents. I still stand on the same ground though. Your reference does not mean a whole lot. Emitted light is great but it still has to penetrate to its source. Your reference is bias scewed as it does away with Par at the target site and only deals with light production. I do not claim that a T-5 does not have the capability to provide the proper wave length light or that it emits a lot of light, I just say that the light is spread out over a greater distance and therefore it is not as intense and therefore does not penetrate as far. And as for ignoring Lux and trying to rate something based entirely on Par at the source, thats pretty absurd. If you T-5 tube was 4 foot long, or the same wattage and 8 foot long would matter as the light intensity would be less, but the amount of light put out would be the same. I do not buy the argument about glass and ripples and such for a reason to give merit to the work, it is flawed, and scewed. Your still trying to say a rice rocket turbo 4 cylinder is better than a 426 Hemi. Apples and oranges. The water pipe velocity analogy still applies.