Odyssea...

Are Odyssea fixtures any good? I'm having a lighting emergency and on a tight budget need to solve it. How does this look? Odyssea 48" HO T5 216W Aquarium Reef Light 4 x 54W - eBay (item 140296500764 end time Jan-28-09 16:02:45 PST)

 

Those are T-6 blubs, they are ok for the money and I would get them from aquatraders.com.

The only downfall is you cant use normal T-5 bulbs but you can get the replacements from aquatraders.com as well and they are cheap.

 

I wonder why they lie on the ebay page then because they call them T5's...??

I see aquatraders.com has a T5 Odyssea setup like the ebay one so maybe they are T5's. I'd rather buy from them than ebay.

 

Don't know much about this light. What I can tell you is the one you are looking at only has one cord. That means there will be no way put a timer on just the actinics or 12k or leds. The seller looks as if they have one with multiple cords. Here is that link:

Odyssea 48" 216W HO T5 Aquarium Lighting LED 3 Cord - eBay (item 140295130493 end time Jan-22-09 10:59:35 PST)

Good luck with your search

 

Unless they are different I have seem the same company model in a LFS here and they sell them. He said they are not normal T-5's and he had to get the bulbs from Odyseaa direct because others would not work.

They might be different in 09' I really dont know. I have thier 260W PC edition and I am very happy with it.

 

Snowby- Thank you very much for pointing out the two cord thing, that could really be a pain in the a$$, and it's way worth the $30 to not have that situation.

Beamerhack- That is interesting, maybe I'll call aquatraders and see what they say about it, the one on their site says "new item" so maybe it is a normal T5, but after what Snowby said I'm going to make sure whatever I get has two cords!

 

I've also read that normal T5 bulbs won't fit in an Odyssea. Be careful.

I also have an Odyssea PC 260W fixture that looks almost the same. I never had problems with it. The bulbs seemed to lose intensity quickly though. I'd make sure you ca purchase good quality replacement bulbs before buyng.

 

That is so werid. I'm definitely going to look into this.

 

Well what I'm seeing is that people are getting T6's and then can't find bulbs to fit them, I'm still going to call aquatraders and find out if the T5 setup is "normal" - I'm also seeing stuff about the actinic bulbs not being true, that they are just painted. These posts are older though, like from '05 and referring to the T6. Still have some more research to do...

 

That is so cheap! I wish i lived in the states!