Questions about da hood.

[kappaknight]

I'm interested in getting a 4' Protostar Hamilton Hood w/ MH and VHO. Actually two questions:

1. Is VHO > T5's in terms of PAR or is it the other way around? What is better for actinics and what is cheaper to run?

2. Regarding the Hamilton hoods, do you set these directly on the tank or is it preferred to hang them over the tank about 6+ inches away from the tank?

I think if I put it directly on the tank, I would need to increase the rate I replenish my top-off water which has kalk in it; would that be bad to run it at about a drip a second?

 

[gwen_o_lyn]

i have ran my ghetto topoff at a drip per sec with kalk and never had a problem

 

[pillz]

From what I have read VHOs have less par than t5s but VHOs are great for supplemental lighting. What I figured out first hand though is that if you really want to run a 10K or less then you need to atleast have the same and better have more watts of VHO over your metal halide. Like 1 250 and then have 4 75 watters would turn the 10 k look into more of a 20k look with great growth..

 

[kappaknight]

I think I'm going to be running 14k's. I *think* the only option now is VHO or PC's but I can check for T5's. I'm also now thinking about starting a second frag tank in the 29g that I have and maybe running only T5's on there. Stupid addicting hobby.

 

[schwaggs]

It depends on if you can get multiple T5 tubes in the hood. Two 4' VHOs are much brighter than two 4' T5s IMO. The "more par" claim by T5 vendors comes from the fact that you can pack more T5 tubes in the same space as VHO tubes.

 

[tsciarini]

Schwaggs wrote: It depends on if you can get multiple T5 tubes in the hood. Two 4' VHOs are much brighter than two 4' T5s IMO. The "more par" claim by T5 vendors comes from the fact that you can pack more T5 tubes in the same space as VHO tubes.

+1

 

[pillz]

Also to get more par you have to use the single reflectors.

But hey if you want to run VHOS I have a icecap 430, stand offs, endcaps,a nd bulbs. Total plug and play set up.