Ati t5s very inconsistant with diff sizes.. why ?

[Candymancan]

Question for you guys.  I use T5e on my reef and both fixtures are the white grow fixtures with individual reflectors you buy on amazon.   Theyre pretty good fixtures actually.     I use a 48 inch and 24 inch to cover my 135 6ft tank fully.

 

But ive noticed an inconsistant brightness and color on the bulbs.  On the 24 inch fixture the ATI bulbs are dimmer and different colors.  Lile the two coral plus look purple and the two coral plus on the 48 inch fixture look pink.  The blue plus are also a  darker blue.  And this sectuon of my tank is clearly dimmer and more purple.   If you stare at it.   Its rather annoying.

 

At first i thought it was the older bulbls in the 24 inch.  So i got new ones only 3 months ago and im noticing this trend again.. its like the shorter bulbs are dimming changing color faster then the longer ones.    Right now the longer ones are about 9-10 months old but theyre much brighter and have retained their original color still.  One of the ATI blue bulbs the one on the right in my picture is really really dark.  

 

Whats the deal here ?  Is there anyway i can contact ATI over this ?  Because im not very happy spending 100$ on bulbs for em to em and change colors so fast.    Picture is below.. the bottom light is the short one top is the long one.

 

Is it the bulbs or do you think the fixture itself is doing this ? 

[mcarroll]

Seems like it's worth at least asking the people you bought them from about it.  They should be able to refer you to the correct contact at ATI if needed.

[mitten_reef]

a few thoughts, although I’m not an expert with T5 by any means. 

• Your bulbs have different age all the time, hard to directly compare outputs conclusively
• Are your fixtures from the same company, i.e. do they have similar quality ballasts? 

I know it’d drive me nuts to have two parts of the tank look different. But I don’t have any other suggestions beyond reset both fixtures to the same size (2-36”?), brands ( equal quality ballasts), and all same age bulbs.