Depends whether you are growing Bucephalandra "Brownie Ghost 2011", Bacopa Salzmannii "Purple" or Rotala ramosior "Florida" etc.
Read <
this article>, and <
this one>. You can see purple was very popular.
What you want is a selection that you can swap around depending upon your plant selection.
That is how I see it, and I expect you would might several of those fittings to get good coverage. When I looked at this for you, I just thought - hold on that's thousands of pounds.
You should get 24,000 hours from a flourescent T5, so that is about 8.2 years lifespan. There is less that can go wrong and components can be fixed or replaced. Get some tubes cheap and put them away in the garage or the loft and you are sorted for years to come. I did a life-cycle analysis once and the research showed that they are roughly equal in terms of intensity per Watt. Obviously, it is lens technology with LEDs or the quality of reflectors with flourescents that makes the biggest difference when it comes to light distribution - but get this sorted and they are great. The only thing I would say is that you forgo the shadowy-dark areas, so they are not ideal for diorama tanks. But for anything neo-dutch they really blow my socks off. Plus I think dioramas are great for photographs but quite unlivable as a domestic aesthetic. There are also T5 LEDs, some of which I suspect might be addressable if you felt dioramical.
The orange bulbs I used were colour temperature 827, coming in at around 2700 Kelvin. You can find them <
here>. The seller I have used before and they are good. The only problem was that once the box was a bit bent, so it might be worth discussing the packaging upfront. But they are a professional T5 tube company and I expect you would get a replacement. Usually the boxes/strong carboard tubes are very sturdy from them. I would still use them again.
I would not underestimate the value of orange light. And pink too. What I liked best was one pink, one very cool white, one more neutral white, and another as orange as I could get it. The carpet was screaming and the whole room lit up. The colour temperatures were so good that you could go outside and look in and it seemed better than the naff daylight we get in the summer. Artwork and even jumpers and blankets in the room really popped.
All this talk of T5s has actually got me a bit anxious for something like what you are getting. I have an AquaLumi Universal with the reflectors in the garage, and we used it on a Juwel Rio 125. I felt it was let down by reflectors that were too shallow and no option for high-output bulbs - in fact, I am not sure they offer universal bulb sizes so you might be locked-into to their tube selection (check this) ...so I would go for the DIY route. Plus it's a bit more versatile if you build it yourself because you can have hanging plants, somewhere to put your coffee, etc., and build it how you would like... or I would look at something like this <
LUMii> and a pulley.
