Refurbish t5 or Buy New?

[dlux5life]

So I’m working towards building a frag grow out tank in a fish room project that is very early on.

I have an older 48” 8 bulb TEK T5 unit. I can refurbish it with new reflectors and bulbs for about 300 dollars. The bulbs were used close to two years and the reflector has considerable salt creep damage. Other than that, the unit is in great shape.

I’ve been out of the game for a few years. What would folks do? Refurbish this unit, or go a different route, say LED’s.

Trying to keep the costs lower for now, but I don’t want to throw 300 into this only to feel like I made the wrong choice.

Specific product recommendations would be appreciated. Goal would be to keep it under 500.

Tank is a 50 gallon low boy, 48 x 24 x 10.

Goal is to grow SPS frags into mini colonies while I plan and build out my main tank over the next few years.

 

[FishieBusiness]

T5s are great lights for growing corals. There are plenty of reefers out there using them as primary and supplementary sources. I would go with the rebuild personally. The money saved can go towards more corals.

 

[dz6t]

I use a lot of T5 on my coral farm.
But I won’t rebuild a Tek light t5 as it is really not designed for reef aquarium. TEK t5 used to be popular in reef aquarium long time ago but it faded away due to
1. It was not designed to be used with a acrylic or glass shield. It was designed to run in open air. When people put a splash shield on, the t5 bulbs over heated and significantly reduced their efficiency and shortened their lifespan.

2. If you run it without a shield, corrosion happens and can lead to fire.

 

[dlux5life]

I use a lot of T5 on my coral farm.
But I won’t rebuild a Tek light t5 as it is really not designed for reef aquarium. TEK t5 used to be popular in reef aquarium long time ago but it faded away due to
1. It was not designed to be used with a acrylic or glass shield. It was designed to run in open air. When people put a splash shield on, the t5 bulbs over heated and significantly reduced their efficiency and shortened their lifespan.

2. If you run it without a shield, corrosion happens and can lead to fire.

Good to know! T5 bulbs seem to be more expensive than I remember. I added three computer fans to the top of the unit to help with cooling. I can post a picture later when I get home. Had a CNC shop cut the top for me.

It’s closer to $250 in bulbs vs the cost of lighting a 50 gallon low boy with something else.

 

[dlux5life]

The large fan is an exhaust and the two small ones are intakes. No cover over the lights tho.

 

[dz6t]

I will definitely cut a piece of acrylic as a shield.

 

[dlux5life]

Do folks think a couple quanta helix light bars would be sufficient? Maybe 3? Trying to not spend a thousand bucks on this.

 

[dz6t]

For a 50g lowboy, in my experience, a 8 bulb t5 already too much for this tank as the Tek light is not dimmable, you need to hang it pretty high to avoid burning many coral such as favia, monti, chalice etc. I have the Quanta bar, it is quite powerful. If I run 2 Quanta bars along with the t6, I would only run 6 (if 4 is not an option depending how the fixture is wired) out of the 8 t5 lamp with 2 Quanta bars.