need opinion on this Mh lighting

i have been trying to purchase a set for my tank and so far this is the only thing i have found which is not a brand name lighting on ebay. anybody has any info or experience on such lighting? (no name brands vs. branded names)
72" Metal Halide Light Aquarium Reef Marine 1134W New - eBay (item 300477248665 end time Nov-04-10 18:08:51 PDT)
any info is appreciated. thanks.

 

the thing is that the ballasts will be bad and will underpower your lights. then to make the situation worse, your halides will be terrible and will need replaced right away anyways.
IMO CFL bulbs are not the best for supplementation either. the CFL bulbs included will most likely need to be replaced in 6 months anyways also.
To answer your question honestly: name brand stuff has a name brand reputation to uphold. you are paying the extra $$ for the quality and the good reputation. You can spend a little extra on quality now or twice as much on quality later... so just go with name brand, or for the best quality build your own.

Like i said, your cheapest and smartest option here is to build your own lights. So you dont have to redo them a year down the road, i would recommend lumenmax or lumenbrite reflectors and nice ballasts like icecap or lumatek. you can get any color you want with halides but if you desire a super blue tank, then some actinics have to be added. (by the way, you will not get good a color temperature out of that fixture with the stock bulbs anyways, it will be yellow)

 

sorry to say, with lights you get what you pay for! I have heard of many problems with ebay MH (cant remember the name but they were cheap lights) catching fire! As Dingo said above, the problem is the ballests, plus the bulbs are cheap and will not be at the proper PAR level.

IMO, wait on the light until you can get a quality light or build your own. It will save you a lot of money down the road

 

Here is what i heered on ebay lights....
IF you have ever heared of the place called Aquatraders.com or the odyssea lights, thats pretty much the same value your getting..and also, cheap lights could equal a fire, especially with MH high powered lights.

 

well I disagree with the others comments. I have this fixture and for the money it is great.
Ive had mine for 2 yrs now with no problems, but I did upgrade the bulbs in the first 6 months which I agree on with what you pay for is what you get. And the ballast are not the greatest, but when 1 does burn out Im going to replace all 3 with icecaps. I keep all my electric on gfci outlets, that way if there ever was a problem it would trip them out right away. Better safe than sorry. Just my 2 cents.

 

Thanks for the input. I decided to get the marineland marine reef pro for my lighting. The selling point for me was the i ternal timer which is hsrd to come by with the mh lighting without paying a goid amount for it. By the wag i got a good deal for my marineland.