Phillips Blue T8

Smithers

Smithers

Joined
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I know what you must be thinking. A T8 that is like so last year. Last night I was a bored so I started cleaning out some old boxes and found a Phillips Blue T8.
With my first tank (Year Before) I had one of these running. I remember it being quite blue but last night I was amazed.

I pulled out the trusty ballast and quickly connected it. I turned off the T5's and turned on the T8

The light, for those of you who are not familiar with it, glows a deep dark blue. I have some orange and brown zoa's. The orange glowed a luminous organge and for the first time I noticed organge dots on tips of the polyps.
My green stars were glowing as well.

I am going to use this now as a night light for my tank now.
 
Cool, please post pics as I am keen to see the results.
 
They are so cheap as well. I picked mine up for 49 rand ! IMO it is nicer than the ATI pure blue.
Galibore I will try take some pics tonight.
 
the philips is quite nice,ive tried it out on older systems,even the white in it is pure crisp white!
 
Phillips Lamps

I use them, have done for many years. They are very effective. The Phillips 2 and three foot actinic lamps are T8, The 4 foot actinic is a T12.
If I may, T5 simply means 5/8 ths of an inch, so T12 is 12/8 ths which means one and a half inch. T5 's are High Output lamps ie a 3 foot T5 has an output of 39 watts as opposed to a 3 foot T8 which has an output of 30 watt.
The magic is not in whether the lamps are T5 or T8, its in the spectrum.

Rod
 
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That is the crap thing with T8's or t12's they are just big and bulky. Just the spectrum the Phillips blue delivers I think is really nice.
Thanks for the extra info Rod.
 
Bristlebasher said:
Nice to see you here Rod.

Yeah - I think the guys are more concerned about the size due to the fittings they run.

T5's require electronic ballasts - while the rest can be run on standards.
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Thanks Bristlebasher, your tank is amazing.
 
I use the phillips antinics with no problems, 2 x 3 ft and 1 x 5 ft VHO T12
 
Phillips T12

Alan said:
The VHO puts out 140w and i wired 2 x 65w ballists to run it.
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Could you help with the wiring on the 2 x 65 w? I have seen it done in the distant past and can't remember.
 
You wire it as though wiring a single balast, and then add one in parallel. (ie put the second one next to the first, take one line from the LHS of ballast one to LHS of Ballast 2 another line from RHS of Ballast 1 to RHS of ballast 2). Easy really.

Those phillips bulbs are great, get fantastic flourescence too. The original and possibly still the best Actinic around.
 
Smithers said:
They are so cheap as well. I picked mine up for 49 rand ! IMO it is nicer than the ATI pure blue.
Galibore I will try take some pics tonight.
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And where do we get these phillips tubes? :whistling:
 
Viper i have only seen them in 5ft lengths. I know Liaquat stocks them.
 
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