Review: T5 Fluorescent Purple Tube Bulb from iQuatics

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Jeremy Gay takes a look at this latest offering from iQuatics Online.

The lighting market is a battleground with more competition than it has ever had before.

LED continues to grow and develop, and even the average fishkeeper seemingly now knows much more than they ever did before about the science behind lighting.

As people looked more into light spectrums, demand increased for lights that produce more violet hues, both for the benefit of the corals themselves and their owners, who sought better colour.

High-end lighting companies such as Kz and ATI aquatics produced the first such 'purple' T5 tubes, and iQuatics Online now produces them too, only with its low, low price tags.

Verdict

For the techno geeks, these purple tubes have a peak around the 400nm mark, and for owners of multiple T5 luminaires, the norm is to add at least one purple tube to your blues and whites so that everyone benefits from that violet output.

And for what it’s worth, I have noticed that coralline algae love it too. The

T5 Purple Tube Bulb comes in 24, 39, 54 and 80w sizes. At the time of this review iQuatics had not produced one in the bespoke Juwel Aquarium sizes.

Price: from £12.99 to £16.99. Available from iquaticsonline.co.uk.

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