How to get more intensity(PAR) and life from T5HO bulbs

[Doogle]

Here is a simple way to get increased PAR and bulb life out of your T5HO bulbs.
T5HO Bulbs have what is know as the cold spot. The cold spot is on the end of the bulb where the manufacturer's label is on the far end of one side of the bulb.
This area is very important to understand to get the maximum life and intensity out of your bulbs. To have a properly functioning bulb you must cool this "cold spot" or label end of the bulb. Too much cooling and the bulbs wattage will increase and PAR will drop, sounds backwards, huh? The optimum temperature is around 95*F.
Anyone with an ATI fixture know the importance of proper cooling. ATI fixtures have a switch on the fans A/C plug where you can change the voltage and fan speed. The recommended voltage for most in house temperatures of 68-80*F s 9v. If your fixture is in a cooler area you may be best served at 6-7.5v or less in extremely cold areas. Only a PAR meter will tell you exactly how much PAR your gaining or losing but this is a generalization to help you make an informed choice for your setup.

Notice the holes above the label ends of the bulbs? Cool air is blown past the ballasts and onto the cold spot of the bulb, notice the labels on the bulbs are all on the same side where the cool air is hitting the bulb? That's what we want!
What about those of us that don't have an ATI fixture? There is a simple way to get the increased PAR and extended bulb life too! It's as easy as removing any splash shield that may increase internal temperatures of bulbs and ballasts and adding a small fan pointed at either the fixtures vent holes near the bulb's label ends (cold spots) or blowing across the label ends themselves. If you have a PAR meter handy ( not many of us do unfortunately ) you can test the bulbs before and after and find the best spot and fan speed to get the best results. Unfortunately some fixtures with waterproof end caps like HAGEN GLO fixtures make this more difficult.

There are more factors like good independent reflectors to add to the list of things to get the most out of your T5 bulbs. Here's a 4 bulb ATI Sunpower, notice the reflectors

and the reflection on the water...

Notice how consistent the light is.
Now Current's reflectors( a popular brand )

And the reflection on the water...

Here's another example of poor reflectors...

Notice the difference between good and poor reflectors? The bulbs blend in on the ATI's reflection while the other poor quality reflectors don't direct the reflected light into the tank. You are losing A LOT of light that should be directed into your tank, instead it is wasted with poor reflectors.
Also good bulbs are a must! ATI,KZ,GEISSEMAN have proven themselves and are much better than cheap bulbs that come with most low/mid end light fixtures. I recommend not getting a fixture that comes with bulbs unless they come with ATI or GEISSEMAN bulbs which are the most common aftermarket bulbs that you can get with a fixture like ATI.

Hope this helps you get the most out of your T5HO bulbs!

 

[BigAl07]

Excellent write up!!

 

[Willie McDaries]

+1 excellent,I hadn't noticed the light reflecting off the water surface,now,I gotta wait til my halides go off so I can see how good my reflectors are,I purchased the retro fit kits but never knew there was that much difference in individual reflectors

 

[peligro]

That was a good short read. And very good info, thanks you've helped with a aspect of my planning

HTC EVO

 

[BigAl07]

+1 excellent,I hadn't noticed the light reflecting off the water surface,now,I gotta wait til my halides go off so I can see how good my reflectors are,I purchased the retro fit kits but never knew there was that much difference in individual reflectors

Back before LED became all the rage I was heavily into T5's and reflector talks. I can't find it now but I read one "credible" article back several years that claimed that a high quality IDR could improve total amount of light penetrating the water by over 200%. Even if you factor in they had inflated their test results by a factor of 100% then you still have a net increase in light penetrating the water of 100%. I always felt like that was a stretch but it drives home the importance of high end IDR's.

 

[redneckgearhead]

Great write up! I had to run home last night and check my new ATI fixture and somehow I managed to install the bulbs this way! I did noticed the reflection as well. I am going to snag an infrared gun and take some temp readings on that end of the bulb to make certain my temps are in range.

 

[Waya]

Gotta change my bulbs this weekend. Will check for this when changing. Good write up.

 

[Doogle]

Great write up! I had to run home last night and check my new ATI fixture and somehow I managed to install the bulbs this way! I did noticed the reflection as well. I am going to snag an infrared gun and take some temp readings on that end of the bulb to make certain my temps are in range.

Just to be clear the ambient temp around the bulb's cold spot should be 95*F the metal end cap and cold spot itself should be around 113*F. Lower the voltage and then test, then try to raise the voltage to 9-12 and take new measurements. See how much the bulb temp raises and drops. If you had a PAR meter I'd like to see how much uncooled ATI fixtures lose PAR when not cooled, supposedly uncooled ATI fixtures lose around 200 PAR but I forget if its a 48"x 6 bulb fixture that was used or not... Either way its still a lot!

 

[Willie McDaries]

Back before LED became all the rage I was heavily into T5's and reflector talks. I can't find it now but I read one "credible" article back several years that claimed that a high quality IDR could improve total amount of light penetrating the water by over 200%. Even if you factor in they had inflated their test results by a factor of 100% then you still have a net increase in light penetrating the water of 100%. I always felt like that was a stretch but it drives home the importance of high end IDR's.

yep,my retro kit TEK reflectors claimed to have a 300% increase over bare bulbs,I don't know about that but I can say it is a major huge improvement,just judging by eye site,it's at least twice as bright in the tank...I forgot the other day,I was gonna snap a surface reflection pic to show what mine look like,I'll try to remember to do that today

oh,and I only had 1 bulb properly oriented to the fan side,I fixed that and went ahead and cleaned my reflectors,they were a little dusty

 

[Willie McDaries]

here's what mine look like,these are ATI blue plus bulbs with the 2 x 54w T5HO TEK retro kit,I'm using just for morning and evening lighting with my halides

the light itself :

the reflection :

 

[Doogle]

At least you had one right! I'm unsure about how well the IR temp gun will work, but another common optimal temp is around 108*F at the exhaust end of the fixtiure (ATI). Obviously the temp rises as it passes the bulbs before it is vented out the side.

Here is some more relector pics.

Hagen GLO dual. notice how between the bulbs there is no reflection

Dual GLO reflection

I noticed when you look at the reflector at an angle you get light reflection in the center so it does work just not straight down into the tank, where you want it for good penetration.

GLO single T5 (dirty reflectors)

GLO single reflection

Pretty good, the single gets better use of the reflectors but of coarse less PAR, I do like the size of these reflectors, I wish more T5 manufacturers would make them bigger like this. Better than Current's reflectors anyway.

 

[Doogle]

Ya the Retro TEK reflectors look good, they are better than the reflectors that come standard on the normal TEK light.
It's hard to tell by the reflection on the water, its hard to get a straight level picture when your holding things with both hands ( namely the canopy bing tilted i suppose ) but your first pic shows them pretty well.
I turned off my pumps for the dual GLO reflection pic, helps a lot !lol

 

[Willie McDaries]

Ya the Retro TEK reflectors look good, they are better than the reflectors that come standard on the normal TEK light.
It's hard to tell by the reflection on the water, its hard to get a straight level picture when your holding things with both hands ( namely the canopy bing tilted i suppose ) but your first pic shows them pretty well.

I started to purchase the TEK light fixture instead of the retros because they were cheaper but I needed the flexibility of the retro kit,maybe the lower quality reflectors were the reason for the lower price of the complete fixture....

these are multi faceted reflectors,not just flat,they have several bends and a near mirror polish....my CL pump was still running in the reflection pic,I waited until the OM changed directions but it was still moving the surface a little so it wasn't a really clear pic,but yes,these are pretty good reflectors

 

[Doogle]

Ya I think they charge more for the flexibility more than the cost of a little better reflectors. I mean no material costs for the housing or labor for wiring and putting it together, greed IMO. No way the 1% increase in relectors costs that much. The normal TEK has 95% reflectors the READY FIT & RETRO kits have 96% and the ELITE fixtures have 98% reflective aluminum relectors.
ATI uses silver coated 98% aluminum reflectors, the difference is the sunpower uses parabolic tyle with a couple slight bends and the powermodule is true parabolic with no bends in the reflector, kinda similar to the GLO reflectors just way better.

 

[Willie McDaries]

Ya I think they charge more for the flexibility more than the cost of a little better reflectors. I mean no material costs for the housing or labor for wiring and putting it together, greed IMO. No way the 1% increase in relectors costs that much. The normal TEK has 95% reflectors the READY FIT & RETRO kits have 96% and the ELITE fixtures have 98% reflective aluminum relectors.
ATI uses silver coated 98% aluminum reflectors, the difference is the sunpower uses parabolic tyle with a couple slight bends and the powermodule is true parabolic with no bends in the reflector, kinda similar to the GLO reflectors just way better.

my reflectors are clipped directly to the bulb too,if they were mounted to the canopy,the bulb would be slightly farther away,that might effect the lighting output a little too,I like the clip on idea though,with the way I had to mount the T5s to make room for the Lumen Bright MH pendants,I am able to slightly angle the reflector to shine better toward the rockwork instead of straight down in my sand bed

 

[Doogle]

I like the idea of rotating the reflector so you can focus the light where you need it.
I don't know if the distance matters "if" the reflector is designed for it to be farther from the bulb it should be fine. I know the ATI reflectors are designed to be close to the bulb and are not supposed to be used as retro reflectors because they end up being too far from the bulb when rigged in a retro setup.

 

[Willie McDaries]

I like the idea of rotating the reflector so you can focus the light where you need it.
I don't know if the distance matters "if" the reflector is designed for it to be farther from the bulb it should be fine. I know the ATI reflectors are designed to be close to the bulb and are not supposed to be used as retro reflectors because they end up being too far from the bulb when rigged in a retro setup.

that serves a dual purpose,since I'm too lazy to finish my canopy,with the reflectors slightly angled back,it cuts down on the light spilled back into the living room too