T-5 Lighting for a Refugium

[Matt L.]

I have a Sunlight Supply TEK, 48" x 6 T-5 lighting fixture.

I am going to use this lighting fixture on my new, 90gal refugium.

What color T-5 bulbs have people used successfully to grow macroalgae? There are 5500K and 6500K bulbs available, but surprisingly, I've found few threads on the subject.

Matt

 

[SteveDola]

GE sells a 3000k bulb and a 6500k bulb. May need to look around online for one. ALso, DD sells a midday sun which is 6000k. If its strictly macro you could do 3000 kelvin or if you want to do a mix of macro - coral prop you could do 6000 - 6500k.

 

[SteveDola]

http://www.reefgeek.com/lighting/t5-fluorescent.html?option_brand=150

 

[SteveDola]

problem is that its only 24" but im sure with a search engine like google you could find a 4' version

 

[jarrodsanborn]

All 6500k bulbs would be best imho.
4 bulbs :3x65k and a blue+ if you plan on having frags in it too

6 bulbs seems like super overkill

 

[nemodan]

I always had PC (actinics and white) on my refugium, same intensity and watts (3-4 W/G) like for growing for soft and LPS corals and always worked great !!!.

Now in the refugium of my Coralife 14G Biocube, that is very small and located in the back, I have a mini T5 (6W, 2 bulbs, one 10K and another Actinic). Macroalgae grows very well under that condition.

 

[Matt L.]

Thank you for your feedback.

The reason I am using this lighting option is because I happen to have a Sunlight Supply 6 x 48" T-5 lighting fixture that is presently unused.

I had used it for a short while, but T-5 didn't provide enough light for the corals I wanted to grow in my display tank, so it went into storage.

I hope to re-use it as a refugium light in my new system I am setting up.

For a 90gal tank, this will come out to be about 3-2/3 W/gal. That could be used to grow some corals, but I really want to use as much of the volume of the 90gal for macroalgae growth as possible.

I'll do a more careful search of RC and see if anybody there has some additional advice on bulb color for a refugium.

Matt

 

[SteveDola]

I think macros do well in a range of lower kelvin environments. I would aim for 5000k - 6500k which shouldn't be hard with 6 bulbs. might consider only using 3 or 4 bulbs (depending on how the fixture works) because I don't think you need a lot of light for macros.