Aquarium Light question!
 

Iv been doing some heavy looking around for a very well priced 48" light for my salt water tank as I dont have 1000$ to spend and I seen a few fair priced ones has anyone have a good place to find a cheap light thats of high quality.


I looked on ebay and found this
http://cgi.ebay.ca/48-INCH-T5-HO-QUA...item3f0a98bc4c

it seems like its the same bulbs as a coralife light but for a fraction of the price
2 x 54W T5 HO 12000K bulb.
2 x 54W T5 HO Actinic bulb.


If someone could take a look and let me know that would be fantastic looking to get one this weekend

From what I can see, it doesn't have individual reflectors which tends to give you the best bang for your buck with T5 lighting. It'll do the job but it's no screaming genius. And the bulb quality may be questionable. Sorry to be Debby Downer. I'm usually all for the eBay fixtures but this one isn't jumping out at me as a deal.

You might not have $1K to drop on lighting but do you have $200? If so I'd consider a Sunlight supply T5 fixture. Waaaaay better fixture for a small sum of $$$. You'll probably find you have to replace the bulbs that comes with it for a cost of $100 just to make it decent performing.

You could also consider a fishneedit fixture

+1 for fishneedit

or wait for a used fixture to come up for sale (check the classifieds here or kijiji locally)

your local lfs may have some trade ins especially with LEDs taking off.

I would recommend you only consider LED. More expensive but you do not have to replace the lights for 5 years instead of the 9 to 12 months with other lighting.

Look at www.fish-street.com

If hes looking on Ebay I dont think he will find to many LED setups worth his time, I took a quick look and most of the LED fixtures on there are MarineLand Double Bright fixtures which seem more for FW than reef setups...

I lost my afternoon because of that link. Damn it...

Ha ha! I came across that link with my spider search when someone mispelt tank and spelt tang.

Ended up spending a few hours there and bought two Key LED lighting systems. I am really happy with them.

Seems like everything on their site that uses electricity is set to use 220 v power. Is your light?

Would two 24" fixture work? You could try these Odyssea 24" 96w fixtures from AquaTraders at about $65 each.

Here is a canreef thread talking about the Odyssea lighting: Cheap lighting HQI... to good to be true?

There is a 48" T5 fixture for sale in the buy/sell area:
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=75991