Got my new light
 

So I came home today from university and saw a big 4' box infront of the door. NEW LIGHT! YAY :D

Its an odyssea (yah yah :P) deluxe 4 bulb T5HO 36" light. I have just given it a test run and here are my opinions:

Shipping: I was surprised how quickly this thing came in. I ordered it online on 2nd Jan, shipped on 4th Jan from USA and received it today (9th Jan). I am very happy with the shipping.

Packaging: To be honest, I am not impressed it the packaging. Its a big white box with another brown box inside and the whole fixture was just one layered bubble packed. It could have been easily damaged. But its all good since the whole thing is in one piece with no broken bulbs. And they have also included a manual for the timer.

Build quality: I must say I am impressed with the build quality. Plastic with three fan vents along with side vents, easy-to-remove splash guard and the timer is the gold (although I have not tried the auto mode yet; need to find out how it works). The legs were a big PITA to get into position but its not that bad.

Reflector/light: Well it came with 2 actinics and 2 daylight. I would question the light, particularly one actinic, which has flash bands going inside the bulb. But they are definitely a huge improvement over my previous 2 bulb T5 fixture. HUGE difference! I gave it a little test run and MY GOD I was literally blown away. My tank looks totally different. I wonder what's gonna happen when I add ATI bulbs :P The leds are total disappointment. Although there are 6 LEDs (1w underdrived I presume), it doesn't put enough light. I can hardly see any moonlight effect in the tank with those. I will be sticking the stunner strip with this fixture for moonlight. The reflector is where most of the people will get the disappointment. It is a one piece reflector and not even curved around each bulb. But I believe I wont have any problem with it since it should still put in more than enough light for my tank.

Overall conclusion: I am very happy with this fixture. For $145 shipped, it is a great bargain! I will be changing one actinic to actinic+ and one 10000k to ati purple+ for now and let other two stocks run for now.

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From my experience with the Odyssea stock bulbs I suggest you ditch them all right away. I had real bad cyano problems immediately after installing the Odyssea lights on two different tanks. Went away as soon as I changed the bulbs to Geismann

Thanks for the heads up. I will get all new bulbs :D Don't want anything to go wrong.

Two thumbs up for your improved lighting. Glad your tank looks like a new tank. You'll have to post more pics with the new bulbs.:mrgreen:

Odyssea
 

These light fixtures are a good deal for the price, but like the others say make sure u change the bulbs out. I've got the 4 bulb 24" with all kz bulbs and it puts out more than enough light. My bulb combo is coral 2nd gens and 2 super blues. Btw ur tank looks sick

Yah surely :D

I am thinking of purple+, actinic+, actinic+ and coral. All ATI since kz are hell expensive :S

Thanks for the appreciation :D

Go with the blue+ instead of the actinic+

Yah I hardly saw people using actinic+. Any particular reason for that?

Check out ReefGeek for info on all the differences between all the ATI bulbs including a spectrum chart. Blue + has more par

Oooooo. Thanks :D

Coral + is much better than the older aqua blue special and the purple + is a nice bulb as well.

Yah thats what I heard. That's why I am sticking to coral+,purple+,blue+,blue+.

I'm using 4 blue + 1 purple plus and 1 coral + in my 6 bulb ATI Sunpower. When I change the bulbs I might change one of the blue+ with another coral+.

I'm using the same bulb combo too but I find that it is still too white for my liking. Not sure what to do... Would swapping the purple for another blue do anything or do I really need the white? I have mostly softies/lps but I do have some sps.

check out the goreef site under ati bulbs. it gives 4 bulb combos with kelvin ratings

btw this is just what i've read in my research when i was choosing bulbs for my old t5 fixture. i've never used an actinic t5 bulb.

- the actinic bulbs apparently lose all their punch much faster than the other bulbs and add very little par.

- in fixtures with a ton of bulbs their effect might not even be easily seen but perhaps not the case for you.

Lighting is a very personal choice and if you love actinic bulbs then you love actinic bulbs :-) However, if you want a bit more PAR out of your bulbs but still retain the biofluorescent pop that actinics provide you then I would suggest KZ's 20K SuperBlue (or equivalent 20K T5 from ATI). It isn't an actinic bulb so it has more PAR yet it fluoresces corals quite nicely, similar to an actinic. I use them (KZ superblues) as accents on my Halide+T5 fixture. Just something for your consideration :-)

Also, I didn't know that T5 bulbs varied that much in price?

Depending on what you keep in your tank you'll need the white (Coral Light 10,000K). Take out one of your blues and go with a New Generation 15,000K. You'll get more blue out of that. In my 8 bulb Tek I run 2 New Gens, 2 Coral Lites, 3 Super Blues & 1 Fiji Purple.

Thanks for the insight kien :D

Yah KZs are always $10+ more than ATI. Kinda bumpy!

I don't think I've ever bought ATI bulbs. Mostly KZ and I always got good deals on them from REd Coral or Concepts. The only problem with KZ is that they were always hard to source. Concepts has solved that now I think but for a time I couldn't find KZ bulbs :( Instead I used a "SuperBlue" bulb from some other manufacturer. I think it was AquaWave or something like that. That looked pretty good too for a non-actinic high blue bulb. It was probably closer to 22K though than 20K.

Anyway, I bring it up because you only have 4 bulbs to play with and if it were me I would want to maximize PAR out of the 4 bulbs. Putting in 2 actinics cuts your PAR virtually right in half immediately leaving you with just two T5 grow lights.

edit: I'm not sure how much PAR the fiji puts out as I don't have much experience or research on them. I had them over my tank once and hated the fiji purple so never used them again.

Yap. That's why no actinic...Blue+ only :D