CustomSeaLife PC/Moon-Lite or CoraLife PC ??

BTW, great site here!

I'm looking to upgrade the lighting on my 29 gal. acrylic tank and the lighting in the title are two obvious choices. Light quality wise, both should do what I want since I'm only looking to make the viewing better, help LR production, and maybe introduce some very hardy beginner corals when the time is right. Currently I only have the pos single 20W strip that comes with tanks. My FOWLR has been running for about 5 months.

A big concern for me is system overheating from these PCs though. As I stated I have an acrylic tank which retains heat a little too well in warm areas (I live near San Jose Ca.) and the temp 4 months out of the year can keep my apt. warm and my tank running around 80° - 82° just from ambient heat! I don't want to get a chiller, and both of these units have fans in the hood. Though the Coralife has fans in the top of the hood and can be raised with legs - both of which should help with overheating, but the elevation can increase the evaporation. The CustomSeaLife has a fan on the side of the fixture which should help, but not as much as the top fixture fans on the coralife.

I know this is a pretty complex situation and my apt. environment is very different from most other's aquarium environments. So hopefully I can just get some good general advice from peeps on a few things:

-Can I expect a "significant" hit on my tank temp when going from a 20W fixture to a 110W - 130W fixture?

-Anyone else running an acrylic tank + PC's in a warm environment, what are your thoughts and experiences regarding this?

-Any Pro's and Con's about the fixtures I mentioned? (I did notice that there really weren't any reviews on them yet in this forum)

Thanks!

 

[flash=468,60]http://www.3reef.com/fish/sitepics/threesteps3.swf[/flash]

Hey small world, I live in Pt. Richmond.  

Between those lights it's really a coin toss. Don't they both have legs? I saw the Coralife ones in the store and the fans are nice and quiet. I am not crazy about the colors though. That's enough for me to go with the CustomSeaLife if it were me.

The lamps will raise the temp, PCs are hot, but legs will help with the heat. Personally I would ditch the lid, leave it open top and get the Kent Marine I.V. to deal with evaporation. Or a float switch if you have a sump.

If heat is really a problem maybe you should get one of those micro-chillers. They are relatively cheap.

Thanks for joining!

[smiley=2thumbsup.gif]

 

Definitely a small world!

Yep, both brands have legs, although the CoraLife's legs can be removed - but I think the CustomSeaLife is permanently elevated....
You don't like the brushed metal look of the CoraLlife? Or is the metal fixture painted? It looked plain silver to me.

Since I have acylic the light fixture is really the only "hood" for my aquarium. However since the light fixture will probably be elevated I will have a large 23" x 6" gap on top of the aquarium. I may need to get the Kent I.V. for that...

I hope to not have to get a micro-chiller, I hear they are noisy and I didn't see any cheap ones. Plus, I always try to say "Ok, no more $$ to my fish tank" to my wife but I aways end up going back on my word

 

;D A common theme here is how we have to justify our obsession to our wifes/husbands/girlfriends etc..

The Coralife I saw looked like gold plastic to me. Maybe it was metal, but I wasn't into the gold too much. I think they have different styles/colors though.

If you go open-top, you might want to put a 2" glass 'lip' around the top edge to prevent jumpers.

 

Well I ordered the CustomSeaLife PC/Moon-Lite 24" yesterday.

After lots of 'net research I found that more people have experienced the CSL (hardly any customer info on the CoraLifes) and were happy with 'em. I also found a few people that were upset at how hot their Coralife's were running. Went to LFS (Dolphin Pet Village in Campbell) and asked to hear the CSL's fan in operation and it was surprisingly quiet for the size of it - ~3". So I'll be able to give a review to your CSL thread in a couple months or so...

One very minor issue I have is that the CSL's moon-lite apparently isn't the best moon-lite out there. I hear that it is white, not blue and not the best spectrum either, but I don't think the fixture was for sale without it. Oh well, that obviously wasn't a decision maker for me so I hope it does the moon-lite trick well or I may have to get a better LED from a local store and replace it.

 

8) Cool! Look forward to hearing about it.

 

FYI, i use two 36" Coral Life PC Double Bulb Fixture for my 65 Gallon. No problems with them, they do get a little warm to the touch, but not to bad. I never heard of the CustomSea Life until afte igot my set up, moon lights would of been nice, instead i spent $65.00 on a Marc Weiss Moon Lamp.