Ushio has been one of the most respected names in quality lighting components in the aquarium hobby since the beginning of high tech lighting. Better known for their high quality metal halide bulbs, Ushio is now offering a small catalog of LED lights, some of which may soon have appeal to the aquarium market.
Euroquatics had a promising head start in the direct LED replacements for T5 lamps but it’s been nearly a year since we learned of their E5X. In that time even the E5 lamps have become hard to get, and we’ve yet to see any of the E5X for sale unfortunately.
Thankfully, many different companies are working on making LED lamps which can plug and plug right inside existing fluorescent light fixtures. Two of Ushio’s most exciting offerings include the Indiglow T8 Blacklight tube with 405nm ultraviolet LEDs, and the Ubiquity T5 lamp rated for 5000 Kelvin.
While these tubes are only available in 48 inches, their glass housings should be much more resistant to yellowing and sagging that acrylic tubes suffer from. The Indiglow T8 Blacklight tube represents one of the few ways to directly add pure UV light, for experiment and for fun. Now if Ushio could just make the Indiglow in a T5 form factor we could have the ‘Actinic O3’ lamp for a new generation of aquarists. [Ushio]
