The Arcadia LED T5 Retrofit Lamps are the newest contender for directly replacing T5 fluorescent tubes in a stock T5 fixture. While Euroquatics E5 lamps made their big push in America, Arcadia has been focused on the European market, but Kordon is about to shake things up a bit.
Better known for making high quality fish foods and breather bags, Kordon is one of the oldest companies still operating in the aquarium industry today. In a bid to diversify their catalog with a little more hard goods, Kordon will be distributing the new Arcadia LED T5 Retrofit Lamps in the United States, as well as some other Arcadia products.
For their American launch, the Arcadia LED T5 lamps will be available in four colors: the Marine white is approximately 18,000K, the Marine Blue is an actinic color, the Freshwater Pro is an 8,000 Kelvin lamp, and the Tropical is a multicolored strip with lots of red and greens to bring out a range of colors. While you might have a choice of colors, upon launch there will only be one size of the Arcadia LED T5 Retrofit available, the 24 inch model, with three and four foot lamps coming later.
The form factor of these LED T5 retrofit lamps may look very similar to Euroquatics’ E5 tubes, but they are actually much lower power output. Where the E5 really strives to be a full T5 replacement, the Arcadia tubes seemed to be geared towards more general illumination than really high PAR ‘nutritious’ lighting. A single 24 inch Arcadia LED T5 Retrofit lamp only uses 8 watts of power, just a third of a high output 24 inch T5 tube rated at 24 watts.
