I need Lighting help

[wareagle35031]

Hello all, I am fairly new to the salt wars,lol, I have had fw tanks for a long time, I bought a 65 gal tank a while back, over a year ago, and have upgraded it slowly, I now have a wet dry filter system, as well as a canister filter system, I have in stock, a false percula living in harmony with an anenome, and a fire fish, yellow tang, cleaner shrimp, few crabs, 2 small polyp rocks, and a mushroom. I am now looking to upgrade my lighting system, I currently have a coventinal floresent lighting, and am looing to go to metal halide, any suggestions here is one I am looking at, what do you guys think?? all feedback will be greatly apperciated 36" 442W Metal Halide Aquarium Reef Light w/ Free Ship - eBay (item 130192075746 end time Jan-28-08 11:49:13 PST)

[baugherb]

Welcome to 3Reef>>>>>> The big dogs will be ringing in soon on lighting info
...

[cuttingras]

Yep I'm a T6 gal myself....Welcome to 3reef!!!

[DiamondBitsUSA]

That would work very well. At 23 inches deep you will get good light penetration with a 250W HQI. It looks like an Oddysea fixture to me. You can get them fairly cheap right now directly from the importer at aquatraders.com . They have it for $249 plus free shipping. I'm using their 24 inch 380W setups over one of my 30 breeders and really like it. The only thing I didn't like is the original bulb. It claims to be 15K but is much closer to 10K. I was able to find a 20K HQI replacement on eBay for about $20 shipped.

[Jason McKenzie]

There is a great deal of bad press on Oddysea lights. I have never used them personally. Also 36" lights with only 1 bulb would sit directly over the centre brace of your tank (If you have one).
Also looking at the negative feedback the seller doesn't appear to be very good with customer support. Not that there was a lot of negative feedback

J

[DiamondBitsUSA]

Not to defend them, but I did quite a bit of research on them on that other forum. There was quite a bit of controversy but no one could ever find anybody or any post from people who had first hand negative experience. I'm sure their customer service is terrible; the two LFSs won't carry their products simply because they can't understand the broken English their support and sales departments use. Many, myself included, coral farmers use their fixtures. The price is right and I've never had a problem with them.

The biggest negative story I could find was from someone who thought they remembered reading about somebody else's friend who had a ballast overheat and scorch their hood. None of it was substantiated. I think it is one of those times when someone quickly skims something or reads a single forum post ad takes it as the truth. Of course, they repeat it a couple of times and it becomes "fact." Having said all that, all of the people I have actually spoken to or emailed have had positive experiences with them. The fixture I've been using has only been set up for about a month but it has worked flawlessly so far. The new electronic ballast doesn't get anywhere near as hot as my magnetic one.

[reef_guru]

what are the dimensions of your tank?

if its 48x18x17 your better off with
610w: 2-175 mh and 4-65 pc actinic

or if its 36x18x24 your better of with
692w: 2-250 mh and 2-96 pc actinic

[Jason McKenzie]

Quite possible. I honestly couldn't point you to a thread that was a first hand account of a problem. But I would still be concerned of the customer support.
And Yes the price is righ, but most often you get what you pay for.

J

[cuttingras]

Jason, I love my lights and have recommended them to others. So far, the price was right, even though they are made in China...but now a days what isn't! I haven't had to deal with customer service, other than to email Aquatraders about when they were coming in. They arrived that day! Other than that.....all is well

[wareagle35031]

I have finally ordered me a set of lights, here is a link to them
Current Usa Out Orbit 10k/Actinic