Rookie Lighting Quesiton

I'm a bit curious if anyone has ever used lighting made by fishneedit.com. I'm very intrigued by their T5HO light fixtures. They are very inexpensive but all the reviews I have read so far have been very positive. I have a standard sized 29 gallon tank so I was wondering which size fixture I should get? It looks like they have a 24" four bulb option and a 36" four bulb option. Ideally I would want to grow corals.

 

I think 4 bulb may be a bit much for that size tank. Does this unit allow them to be switched on 2 at a time? Does it have fans? The issue with T5 is really the reflectors with the high quality units having individual reflectors for each bulb. After that it ir really a matter of a quality bulb IMO.

 

4 bulb is good, replace the original bulbs though

 

The unit does allow two bulbs to be turned on at a time.

 

Which brand of T5HO bulbs would you replace the stock bulbs with? Also, what temperature white bulb should I get when I do the replacement?

Also, out of curiousity, there appears to be a fishneedit LED system, or there was one at one point based on youtube videos. I was just curious if anyone knows what happened and why they no longer offer it? Was there a quality problem or was it just not that great of a deal compared to other systems, such as RapidLED? I think that I eventually will go the route of RapidLED but I just want to get going before I put a ton of money into lights.

 

Now you've opened a big can of worms!! You will get lots of advice on what lights to get. Perhaps an ATI purple +, and some pure actinics. A lot depends on the particular look that you like as long as you have the correct spectrum covered. I believe that there is a new thread with people showing off pictures of their tanks with particular lights. That may help you. Geissman in my opinion is probably the best T5 bulb company but others are decent as well. The important thing is that you change the bulbs about every 6 months or so.

 

Any advice on which colors to get and how many? I was just assuming two 10k whites in one fixture and then blues in the other.