lighting options

I agree with John, I just purchased a new TEK fixture tonight. It allows you to pick which lamps you want to use. Is this a new tank? If so corals and fish won't be for awhile. Buy the nice unit now and save your money for corals and fish when you can put them in. I would stay away from Odyssea. They have a rep for their MH ballasts to go bad and underpowered. Also apparently you can only use their T5 lamps in the unit because they are smaller than normal T5 lamps. I spent $550 on my 6 bulb 48" tonight with the mounting legs. I'm coming off of a Coralife PC unit. Do some research, don't be in a hurry in this hobby. ;D

-Brett

 

great thanks for the info keep it coming. im not in to big of a rush just trying to get the stuff i need while i have money.it always seems to go really fast when your trying to save it lol.

 

Stay far away from PCs. T5s are good enough for your tank. You do not need to invest in MH IMO. Buildyourownaquarium has some OK stuff. Danny (Coldshot) I believe got his fixture from them. But my minimum standard stands with Tek. Believe it or not, it is considered middle-of-the-road in price.

 

i now know my budget is kinda low ive sseen the high end lights advertised and yikesss lol

 

does aquaticlife fixture only accept aquaticlife bulbs or can i use any bulb in it ?

 

The aquatic life fixture uses standard T5HO bulbs

I have sold a couple of the fixtures and for the price I like them. They do not have great reflectors, but they are good. they are asymmetrical so the light from the front bulbs goes down and back and the back bulbs go down and front to try to eliminate light spillage.

Kim

 

great thanks. can the reflectors be polished to be more reflective? and can the reflectors be replaced in the future for more reflective ones?

 

You can't really polish them to make them more reflective, thats a matter of quality of Aluminum... The best thats on the market is 98% reflective Miro IV which to my knowledge only ATI and Aquactinics use... Others use 93%-95% reflective.

Sometimes you can swap reflectors out for others but that is usually not the case.

 

thank you very much .so i should stick with the tek lights? im trying to keep the cost under $400 bulbs included. id also like moon lights but i can ad them into the tek fixture i suppose am i correct?

 

If you are handy you could build your own canopy with lights.

Get two or three of these:
Current USA Nova Extreme T5 HO 10K/460nm Fixture

... gut them, then use the parts (ballast, reflectors, lamp ends) to build your own setup.

The only drawback is the reflectors, which can easily be upgraded at a later time when $$$ allows.


... Or you could get two and fit them both over your tank. It would be tight but they should fit. In this case you would still be stuck with the "lesser" reflectors.