Helios lighting

I'm running one 20W aqua-glo bulb and my corals seem to like it. I know I am underlighting the corals but I barely got a hold of a nice canopy. I have considered buying 4 T5 Helios lamps, two 10000K 24W Daylights and two 24W Blues. Will this be enough for the corals and am I overlighting? Keep in mind that I have no clams.

Also, anyone have a good experience with Helios, they are so compact that I wanted to give them a try. And yes, I have heard about what happened to JPFish 3 years ago. All my LFS's carry them, maybe they were improved over the years? They sell between 20-45 bucks, but got them 50% of the manufacturer, so I could get a really good deal.

As for my plans on my tank, I'm planning on getting metalic stars, galaxia, green stars, button polyps, frogspawn, candy corals. Nothing fancy shmancy. What do you guys recommend I should be at, lighting-wise. Halides are not an option. Where I live, lighting bill is looked at with a magnifying glass, so that's out of the question.

If you are wondering of the types of corals I have, peep at my sig.

 

No one? :sigh: ... bump!

 

I think your lighting plan is fine. I haven't used Helios myself, but many of my friends have. Good stuff, just a shame you have to throw the entire thing out when it goes out

 

FYI, my 30g is lit by 1x 150w 20KK DE HQI, 2x 55w actinic PC and 2x 13w actinic PC.

 

No way! The whole thing? I thought you replaced the flourescent bulb? What's the life expectancy of the helios, you know?

 

I have heard bad things about helios Quality but they are cheap.

 

Well, since this thread came up again, I might as well post an update. They sent the Helios which can have the flourescent bulb replaced. After installing them, my bubble coral exploded in happyness. He came completely out. Everything pretty much came out more than before. So far, I've had them for a week, let's see how long they last. :-[

 

Anybody have a picture of bulb and fixture? Curious as to what these things look like. Somebody mentioned having to pitch the whole thing when it goes out.

Thanks,

Anne

 

i agree w/ trickman on this one, I didnt see any wiring prob.s but thier older bulbs seemed to have a fair failure rate, BUT i have had an 18watt pc fixture running over my house plants for over a year.....no problems.

 

I've been running a couple 54 watt superblue T5 helios striplight in a 3x250 watt halide fixture for several months, so far so good but I only used them for dusk/dawn until a few weeks ago. We'll see how they do running with the halides.