[thefishmanlives]

I have a 15owatt MH clamp on fishneedit fixture on my 29 gallon. Id like to get some t5 lighting on there as well to balance out hte blueish 8000k MH bulb. Thing is it needs to be a narrow fixture or else it will block out some of hte MH, iwant to put it all the way to the back of the tank or get 2 single fixtures and put one hugging the front of hte tank and one hugging the back. This coralife 18x1 Linear t5 aqualight is only 2.25" wide and hte double strip is only 3" which should be good. Thing is they use 28.25" bulbs. This is weird to me. Where I can i find other bulbs for this other the the 10k one coralife makes. Im using this lighting only for viewing pleasure and to balance out hte MH so I need a fixtuer that can use a bulb that has red in it. I dont know if they make a GE 9325 t5 bulb but id like something close to that. Should I find a fixture that uses regular size 24" t5 or t5hos? I think the hagen glo single 24" fixture is pretty narrow as well and adjusts to fit a 30" tank but I cant find width dimensions on it. Anyone know this? Any thoughts here?

 

[tropism]

I don't know about the hagen fixtures, but I have several 36" coralife t-5 (21 watts x 2) fixtures. Those were actually the only thing I could find that would work for me on two of my tanks because they're on a counter with cabinets above them, and if I got anything taller I wouldn't be able to access the cabinets. Don't worry about the bulbs being 28.25"... Even regular everyday fluorescent bulbs are not the length they say they are. I just measured a regular 36" bulb, and it's 35" not including the pins, or 35 3/8" including the pins. You just need to look for 30" t-5 normal output bulbs. If the fixtures will be sitting right on top of the tank, you would need one at the front and one at the back to cover the tank. But, 2x 2.25" lights would only leave a 7.5" gap for the MH to go through. (29 gallon tanks are just 12" front to back though, right?) I don't have a GE 9325K to compare it to, but from pictures I've seen, it seems that using the coralife colormax bulbs as a supplement to daylight bulbs has a similar effect to the GE's. I really like the colormax bulbs (not by themselves though!), and coralife does make 30" t-5 bulbs for that fixture.

All that said... I'm a little concerned that 150 watts of MH on a 29 gallon is already "living on the edge". Adding another 36 watts might not be a good thing. Of course, that's not coming from personal experience; I just thought I'd mention the possibility. If you're not too set on keeping the MH (I don't know if I could give it up if I had one...), there are other options that would cost about the same or less than two supplemental light fixtures + bulbs.

 

[thefishmanlives]

Im defintely keeping the MH, but if I add the extra 36 watts I will only use the MH as a 3 or 4 hour burst, and then the t5s just for the sake of viewing pleasure for another 4 hours or so. I know what im doing in terms of a hi light tank. I just really want to bring out my red plants. If I had to I could buy a hagen fixture and suspend it from ceiling but Im not really into doing all that at this point since I have the MH on the legs it came with and Id have to suspend that as well or else it wouldnt look rite. I think Im going to try of of the single strip coralife with the colormax bulb and Ill run it along the back over my red plants. and Ill just run the MH for 4 hours like I said and the t5 for another 3. Ive heard my plants wouldnt suffer because they would do most of their growing during the burst anyway and the t5 would just be for looks as i said. what do you think? that way theres still plenty of room for hte MH to get in there. ITs only about 9 " above the tank so its spread isnt all that wide. The 2.25" along the very back against the backwall of the tank woould probly only block a little if any MH lite. what you think?

 

[thefishmanlives]

Im defintely keeping the MH, but if I add the extra 36 watts I will only use the MH as a 3 or 4 hour burst, and then the t5s just for the sake of viewing pleasure for another 4 hours or so. I know what im doing in terms of a hi light tank. I just really want to bring out my red plants. If I had to I could buy a hagen fixture and suspend it from ceiling but Im not really into doing all that at this point since I have the MH on the legs it came with and Id have to suspend that as well or else it wouldnt look rite. I think Im going to try of of the single strip coralife with the colormax bulb and Ill run it along the back over my red plants. and Ill just run the MH for 4 hours like I said and the t5 for another 3. Ive heard my plants wouldnt suffer because they would do most of their growing during the burst anyway and the t5 would just be for looks as i said. what do you think? that way theres still plenty of room for hte MH to get in there. ITs only about 9 " above the tank so its spread isnt all that wide. The 2.25" along the very back against the backwall of the tank woould probly only block a little if any MH lite. what you think?

 

[tropism]

Well, the Colormax bulbs will definitely bring out the reds in your plants, but they're fairly dim and unbalanced by themselves. I took one of my fixtures and changed out the 6700K daylight bulb for another Colormax (so 2 Colormax, no other bulbs on). It looks pretty pink, but I actually like the way it makes the tank look. Sort of like a sunrise or sunset. Greens still look green and yellows yellow though, so it's not unbearably pink to me. So I take back what I said about not liking the Colormax bulbs by themselves. (I was going by an OLD, really dim t-12 Colormax that I used to use) Unfortunately I don't have a single bulb t-5 strip light and the dual bulb ones won't run with just a single bulb... so I can't really say if a single Colormax would be bright enough for "non-noon-burst" viewing.

To see how much MH light the fixtures would block, you could cut some strips of cardboard or whatever you have handy (2.25" wide for the single bulb, 3 1/8" for the dual bulb) and lay them across the tank. Other than that, I don't really know what else to suggest. Maybe a nearby fish store has the single and/or dual strip lights in stock, and allows returns if you don't like it? It's just hard to tell with something like this without having the equipment there on your tank.