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Help a newbie choose some bulbs (T8's)

discusdan

discusdan

Member
Joined
7 Jan 2013
Messages
302
Hi all,

I'm pretty new to the site and am just after some advise on lighting, I've been doing a lot of reading over the past few days but there's a lot of info to take in and without going through hundreds of threads to find answers I thought I'd ask.

I'm Currently in the process of setting up my tank with the intention of adding quite a few plants. Tank is a 200L and still has the original lights that came with the tank. 30w t8's

The tanks been broken down for the past 4 years and the lights haven't been used in that time.
I Tried them the other day and it took a while for them to spring into life but in the end they did, only thing is they dont look as bright as I remember them.

After doing a bit of research it seems the T8's are a bit old hat now and a lot of people have moved onto T5ho's

I found this light system on e-bay and was tempted to get it to replace my current lights, or use as a back up with my current lights?
I was considering this light unit as it was going to cost £35-40 for new bulbs for my T8's once delivery was added on, so thought I might as well get a hole new unit.
I'm not one to jump in and buy something on the spare of the moment so I did a lot of research on the odyssea lights and it seems they got a lot of bad press at the start but there new models have been improved. That said they are still cheap Chinese products and you get what you pay for. (pay your money and take your chances) For £40 its a chance I would take if it was necessary.

T5 Aquarium 36" Fish Tank Overhead Lighting Two Tube System | eBay

Now after all that I did some more research and it seems My current unit might be fine and all thats needed is some new bulbs, which lead me to this site.

Specialist Tubes

Now comes the confusion, there's so much choice I dont know what bulbs will work and what wont, and which bulbs will give the best brightness and colour?

I stumbled across these which seem a good price but I have no idea if there suitable for an aquarium? So continues the confusion.

3 Foot Fluorescent Tube 30W Skywhite Osram 30 Watt

Any help is much appreciated. oh and as its my first planted tank I'm not planning on Growing any thing particularly hard, but if its possible i would like a set up thats suitable for more exotic plants if I decide to add them later once im more confident.
I've already started looking into DIY c02 injectors.

many thanks.
 
discusdan said:
After doing a bit of research it seems the T8's are a bit old hat now and a lot of people have moved onto T5ho's
Click to expand...
Yeah, and that's exactly why a lot of people never get over their algae. If I were you I would be doing more research on the other factors associated with growing plants successfully and would forget about lights. There is no such thing as "specialist bulbs" unless you are running a Discotheque. Any bulb works as well as any other for plants. Go to your LFS or your local DIY stockist and buy any T8 bulb you want. You do not have to pay 30 quid for a light bulb.

Cheers,
 
Hey Dan, as clive has said any light will do the same job. Adding T5's will just increase the chances of algae and you may need to supplement co2 in some form.
As far as choosing bulbs its only about what you like to look at and is a bit trial and error. As a rough guide if you get 3500k ish then it will be a quite yellow, 6500k (isnt daylight) is whiter but some bulbs will still give a yellow tinge, going up to 8-9000k will be even whiter and crisp but can be a little cold, above10k tends to be a quite blue and will wash out the greens of the plants.
Buy a few from somewhere like maplins and try them out... at £4 a bulb you can swop them if you dont like the colour without breaking the bank.
 
cheers for the replies guys, so the consensus is to stick with my T8's and just get some new bulbs.

I have read most of the cheap HO t5 thread but didnt know if it was usefull info for t8 bulbs.

I'm after that really lush green colour of the plants and a nice bright aquarium so I'm guessing a bulb somewhere in the 8000k region would be a good start?

I'll do a bit more reading and see what i come up with.
cheers.
 
I'm sticking with the t8's and going for a osram lumilux skywhite and a sylvania luxline 835 3500k, though i might change this for a 840 which is 4000k as I dont want to much yellow. what do you think about this combination?

I also didnt think I had any reflectors in the light unit but I have, there white and have gone a bit mouldy and discoloured. I have some aluminium tape which I'm planning to stick to the white reflectors to try and bring them back to life, hopefully it will work but if not i'll have to get some proper ones.
any one know where to get them cheapest? least i've found them for is £14 each.


cheers.
 
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