First thing, remove those colored sleeves from the tubes, they aren't needed... they are removable, right? Next, how do you wind up with five tubes? Is there supposed to be a fourth bulb in the three tube fixture? You cannot really directly compare energy saving CFL (not halogen) and T5. Their efficiency is about equal and thus you will get the same amount of lumens from each but a 90W T5 tube at 48" is going to distribute its light very differently from a 90W (85W closest equivalent) CFL that is only 7" in diameter! As you say, the T5's work. Can you get the same results with less light? That depends on what you are growing and how effectively you are using your lights. Distance, run time, etc. Once you have determined the number of watts of T5 that you need if you want to go to CFL you would need to use the same number of watts to get equivalent results. You will need to pay Boise Power and Light the same amount for T5 as for CFL. Sorry. Still, if you carefully combine daylight and artificial light in a place like Idaho which doesn't suffer from too much cloud cover you should come out alright. I live in NYC, have a look at our electric rates and our climate data and tell me how much sympathy you expect me to have for your situation... ... :-)

H

Haha, I spent some time out east years back, and your right, we do get alot more clear sky than you all do. Infact right now we are praying for clouds, we get beaten down by the sun.
Although in winter it is 50/50. Last winter I did have them in a room where they could get some real light from a window but that has all changed. I was forced to get a roomate so now they will have to be in my room by a huge window that is unfortunatly east facing and covered by 2 giant pines, no light enteres.
And no there are no sleeves. When they are turned off you can't tell the colors, they are all white, when turned on is when they take on those colors, I assume then that it's the gas mixture.
And I must have explained it wrong, I meant I had five fixtures over several tables, each light only takes those 3 tubes.
So your saying I won't really save energy if I switch to halogen bulbs? I was assuming I would have to put up about 2 per table and if I remember right I had 7 or 8 tables.
A mixture of carnivorous plants and orchids (phals, oncids, paphs, dends, cybid, spider and a couple random other things)

raised phals and paphs under lights for awhile -- most plants will do quite well with one warm and one cool bulb -- the question is do you have the full spectrum and then how much light are you delivering to the plant - borrow a light meter and hold it by a leaf -- you may get growth but flowering ? Check the requirements of the plant on the web

The light requirements for plants under lights is completely out of line with the light requirement chars on the web. It simply is not possible to supply the 1200, 1500, 2000, 3000, 4000 and more footcandles suggested by books and web sources as average intensities for orchid culture. Under lights sees orchids receiving 500 to 1000 to possibly 2000fc but for up to 16hr vs the 6hr to 8hr (of optimum light) of a typical 'day' outdoors. Light meters cannot measure these very low (under 1500fc) intensities very accurately no matter what the manufacturer claims. Only a photographic light meter can do that. In any case, it isn't neccessary. The manufacturers of the lights themselves can tell you how much light is obtained from various tubes and CFL.

There are no gas mixtures that make the colors seen in those bulbs. Perhaps the color is internally applied to the glass envelope. The really troubling thing about them is that if that is a 96W ballast then each lamp is getting 32W. That falls right in line with a NO (normal output) fluorescent tube. In other words, all you have are standard flourescent tubes and you only have three per fixture vs the four of 'standard' rigs. Halogen lights are incandescent and they are very inefficient sources of light. The energy saving CFL are not halogen, they are fluorescent.

There is a way to at least capitalize on the investment in ballasts: ditch the funky tubes and buy some standard cool white and warm white as the other poster mentioned. You can then use two sets together for six tubes which is not too shabby for low light stuff @ 14hr but you can also add some CFL to some of the sets for higher light orchids. If you have seven ballasts you will have three areas and you can tailor things however you see fit.

H

Gosh howard you are just a wealth of information.

Yes Pamelaw I actually did get a couple phals, 1 spider, 1 encyclia and 1 miniature cymbidium to flower (that one was sort of close to a window)

You are right about the coloring on those tubes, I took one out and went out into the sun with it and got a close look, it almost looks painted on the inside.

As for the tubes themselves. I had believed that they were t5's. One of the company websites (which many of them are in german) had said t5 comes with the ballast standard. The reason they are colored is because these lights are used all around the world for arcitectural lighting. And I gotta say, they are very bright.
Am I right in assuming t5 is about the best you can do without poping right up to HID?

If they are not t5 i'll switch up the bulbs as you suggested and find alternatives for my higher needs orchids. I would say my collection is about half and half as far as light requirement goes for the most part.

Sorry to keep rehashing a bit but I want em healthy and big ya know.

There is T5 and there is T5. The kind that people rave about and the ones that are very bright are HO (high output) or VHO (very high output) T5. If all 96W of one of your ballasts was going through just one tube (whoa) you would have a VHO T5 and it would be very bright. HO T5's run around 55W and are brighter than the normal output (32W) but of course not quite as bright as the VHO. So changing tubes will give some improvement over the colored tubes but at the end of the (artificial) day you still only have NO tubes. Of course buying HO or VHO tubes will only work if you have a ballast capable of supplying each tube with its rated power i.e. a three tube VHO ballast would be rated at 288W. Again, having NO tubes isn't a problem since it is so easy to augment the sets with CFL it doesn't bear thinking about replacing those ballasts until they go on their own.

H