Could someone with experience and not hearsay Please compare pros and con of powercompacts vs the T 5 for planted tanks and reef in the 100 to 200 gallon range 20 to 24 inch deep aquariums looking to rid tank of overrated and hot halides thanks!!
Well the main thing you have to pay attetion to is your reflectors. The angled reflectors on a powercompact fixture beats the single reflector stripe of a T5 fixture by fair.
I would say with that big of a tank use powercompact, they will work better for the size.
Hey ben, you got that backwards. T5's have far superior reflectors because their shape allows them to better work with a parabolic reflector. There's also less of a problem with restrike. T5's are far superior. I run my reef setup with SPS corals on a 6 lamp Tek T5 unit. T5's don't penetrate depths quite as well as MH, but they get the job done in my standard 75gal tank.