t5 lighting

Firefish wrote: Hey Mark. I have the PFO 2x72" VHO ballast. Will this work for T5s? Ideally I'd like to have them stretch the length of the tank so, could I do 4x36" T5s?

Ryan is correct, sort of.
Any fluorescent ballast can run pretty much any fluorescent light. The key is to match the power output and wiring to the tube configuration. I'll try to explain.

There are two ballasts inside the unit, right? Each ballast runs one 72" t-12 tube. For each inch of length, t-5's require less power(Amps) than t-12's.  Here is where the wiring comes in. By connecting the t5 tubes in "series" a single PFO ballast might be able to run 4 t-5 tubes the same as it would one 72" t-12. This works with Workhorse ballasts but IceCap ballasts can't do it. I actually don't know whether it will work for PFO ballasts, but it won't hurt to try.

The wiring schematic looks like this rough sketch.
two wires from ballast ====:--t5--:><:--t5--:><:--t5--:><:--t5--:====two wires to ballast

For in between the t5's, the two pins from one tube are linked together and linked to the pins on the next tube. Capish?

If it doesn't work, I see a WH7 ballast on Amazon for only $35. One WH7 is all it takes.

On the other hand, FYI, the light delivered by four 39W 36" t5's is less than two 110W 72" URI internal reflector VHO's. The reason t5's became popular was because we could have more color combinations in the same fixure. The small diameter of the t5 tube allows them to be packed into the fixture so they can approximate the same total light output as VHO's

Aloha