Coralife Fixture Mods?
 

I have a Coralife Aqualite Pro with 2 250w DE. I would like to switch it to 400w. Should'nt be that hard as really just changing the ballasts. Some guy told me that it can not be done as there is some sort of computer board in the fixture that will get fried. Has anyone tried this?

How deep is your tank? Are you sure you need 400w? If you are running the stock coralife ballasts replacing those with "good" 250w ballasts will make a huge difference. I run 250w DE on a 30" deep SPS tank and my corals are looking pretty good.

It's 29" deep. So what is a good ballast? I know the Coralife are junk and was waiting for them to go on the fritz before a potential upgrade. I don't need 400w I'm on breakup and just bored. When I'm bored I usually like to spend money. Fixture's 3 years old so just getting prepared.

Actually the Coralife ballasts are not junk. They are magnetic, but I did some research after blowing the ignitor in mine when I tried to upgrade the ballast. I found out my 250W ballasts really do push out that wattage, not like some people say, and they are quite good magnetic ballasts.

If you want to upgrade the wattage, you will need to remove the 2 ignitors in the fixture itself, these units also have tied into them the fan, so you will have to do some rewiring to remove the ignitors and tie the fan into some other power. Then I don't think you will have a problem with just using 400W ballasts with bulbs.

If you don't remove the ignitors and try a third party ballast, you will have a nuclear cloud come out of your fixture.

Rather than change the MH's I just changed the PC's over to 4 T5HO's which made a dramatic change for me. It was a lot easier than doing the MH changeover.

Care to share the details and what to get?

I have an old Coralife PC fixture I'd like to turn into T5's..... I'll have to do some checking.

Here's the link to my mod...http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=40368

Enjoy :)

I did a t5 mod by trimming out the ends of the reflectors and using the end caps and external ballasts of 2 Hagen Glo kits. I was able to put 4 of the 4 foot T5 in my 4 foot Coralife unit and I left the spring clips with the stock rubber bands in. Tight fit but worked out perfect.

Thats awesome! Thank alot. I think I'm just gonna go to an electrical supplier and get T5 end caps and ballasts that will work. Probably much cheaper as the package won't say anything like marine or aquarium.

So I'm in the process of ordrering the supplies to do this to my fixture. But I need to know the dimensions of this ballast before I order. Does anyone know the dimensions. J&L is too busy to look for me.

http://www.jlaquatics.com/product/sl...t+Ballast.html

I don't know the dimensions, but the photo makes it look large. If they are big, they won't fit in the hood... There isn't that much room in there.

Have fun, post pic's of the process.

Personally I loved my Coralife, but found the Hamilton Belize sun in the 5ft which is the length I wanted. I have only had it a few weeks, but love it. Top notch construction, MH with T5HO and LED's. This may be something to look at, talk to Jeff at JL, as he can order it. You will be suprised by the reasonable price including shipping and GST.

Thanks. I found everything I need for $130 taxes in but no bulbs. But at LFS they want $56.79 per bulb. At J&L I can get the bulbs for $13.48 per bulb. The ballasts I found here are going to fit in my fixture but this one that I asked the dimensions for will be alot cheaper. Usually there is no returns on electronics so I'm holding off on ordering the lights until I get the dimensions.

Another question... will I even notice much of a difference if I change out my 2 96w PC's for 4 54w T5's? The PC's are only 30" long and the T5's are 47" long? I will be only using them for actinics. If not too much of a difference I wont bother. Stupid questions I know, but I don't know anyone running T5's to compare against. I run Giesemann 250W 13000k for my MH

I believe you will if they are High Output T5's, regular T5, NO...

I can say my new fixture is T5HO, and I see a difference compared to the PC

Thanks Mseepman! Your mod was really helpful and made me finally decide to do this. My fixture is a 48" and my PC's were only 34" so I gained a good amount.
http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/h...T5bulbs002.jpg

So I got 2 of these ballasts and 8 eight end caps from Nedco.$131
http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/h...T5bulbs003.jpg

These are the ballasts I removed. I found burned marrett and replaced them as well with better ones.
http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/h...T5bulbs001.jpghttp://i255.photobucket.com/albums/h...T5bulbs004.jpg
I thought I could slip these ballasts over the reflector for the MH but they are a little too fat. So I screwed them on to the back of the fixture and they are only visible from the back of the tank anyways.
http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/h...T5bulbs005.jpg
I just removed the clips for the PC's and screwed the capends to the reflector.
Here they are on.
http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/h...be/May7015.jpg

Here's my tank with only the 4 54w T5's turned on. I got the cheap Coralife Actinic bulbs from J&L for $13.88 each. With shipping it was about $80. I'm sure I could have done it for cheaper yet so I'm happy for $210
http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/h...emay7005-1.jpg