Move from MH's to T5's?

[NewbReefer]

Well with me having a bit more time and money for the hobby i've had a few questions come up. While i didn't have much time to spend on my tank i only ran my T5's. now I know you can keep all sorts of corals with T5's but you gotta be be pick about placement like SPS's need to be very close to surface. With T5's i like how cool they run. If i continue on with MH's i may need to get a chiller if i can't get the temp to come down from 82.4 with just the T5's. I also like the color the T5's bring out in the corals and fish but if i go to 10k or 15k MH bulbs wont i get similar results? any suggestions or opinions would be awesome. I have read alot about different lighting and i just put a 9inch fan over my sump so we'll see how that effects the temp. Should i just take out my heater? i think even with the tank at 82 and the heater in the sump it trips off and on, but it makes me nervous to not have a heater in the tank.

 

[daugherty]

I run 4 pc's 2 10k and 2 duel atinic 7100k and o3. and one 14k mh bulb the tank has a blue hue but looks like a crisp day. i would take out the heater my tank has one but it is unpluged. and it runs about 80 with all the lights on i do not have a fan the runs over the water. just the back of my hood is open.

 

[NewbReefer]

I run 4 pc's 2 10k and 2 duel atinic 7100k and o3. and one 14k mh bulb the tank has a blue hue but looks like a crisp day. i would take out the heater my tank has one but it is unpluged. and it runs about 80 with all the lights on i do not have a fan the runs over the water. just the back of my hood is open.

Lookin at your tank pics and that is exactly what i want so it looks like i may need to look into some 14k bulbs. Im running a Current USA brand light fixture http://www.current-usa.com/outerorbithqit5ho.html and i love it but it pumps out some heat with the 2x250watt 10k MH's, but if I could get my tank to sit at 80 with my current MH's i'd be really happy and i'd switch to 14k bulbs

 

[reeffreak]

I can't remember,do you have an open top?If so,run without a top.If you have no top then try running some fans across the top before spending more money for an all T5 fixture.Walmart sells small fans you can mount to wall and blow across the top.They are around $10 a piece.

Now with that being said..you have to decide what's more important to you.There are pros and cons with all lighting systems.You will get better color changing the MH bulbs to 14k but you're also get slower SPS growth.Still,I don't think any MH bulb will give you better colors than T5 bulbs.There's just to many bulbs you can mix and match with t5 because they are ran in banks where MH are space so many inches apart.

 

[NewbReefer]

I do have an open top but would rather not have to run a fan over the display tank, I put a fan on my sump about 4 hours ago so im gonna see how that does.
I would rather stick with MH's if i could so im more than likely going to try every way to get my temp down even if it means installing a chiller.

 

[fatman]

I know it is going to sound strange but the larger the temperature difference between your tank and the air surrounding it the more conduction of heat there will be into the room from the tank. It is actually harder to control your tanks temperature when it is near the room temperature than when the tank is much warmer than the surrounding air. I do not have a temperature problem with most of my tanks when my room temperature is at 68 to 70 degrees. When the room temperature rises above that I start having problems. I run my tanks at 78 to 82 degrees. I run halides and supplement with PC actinic. I use fans for cooling only on my sumps and get an average of 3.5 gallons of evaporation per day from my 120 gallon setups which have 40 gallon sumps. I actually have a loss of heat from my tanks when the lights are running as well as when they are off. I only loose about a tenth of a degree per hour when all lights are on and lose a half of a degree per hour when only the actinics are on. I have two 250 watt heaters in the tank and one is on almost constantly when all lights are out. The second heater only comes on when I have a window open to far. My apartments thermostat is not set for as small of a temperature swing as my heater controller. My apartment temperature has to drop 2 full degrees before the baseboard heaters get water circulation through them. My tank heater controller is set for a half a degree of change before a heater comes on. I did a thermodynamics work up on a 120 gallon setup that I would post if I knew how to post a large thread in parts. However I think it takes a moderator to do that. The whole paper takes up about six pages in a word document format or 35000 characters. This site will only allow a posting of I guess 10000 characters. I can post just the math part but that might not be enough to make it useful as know one will know what the numbers are in the equations so they could not apply it to their own systems or potential new systems.

 

[NewbReefer]

the tank is in the basement and thats always the coolest place in the house. im sure the hottest it gets in the summer down there is 70 degrees and I live in Utah so it can a bit chilly at night in the winter. I just checked the temp of the tank when i woke up this morning and the sump on the fan brought it down to 80.9. Im going to start running my halides for a half hour to a hour each day and see how that does. I have tons of circulation in the tank. i have 2 Koralia 3's that pump out 850 gph and one maxijet 1200 that i believe is rated for 295 gph and a little from my sump return, so the temps are the same all around my tank im sure.