Well considering "GOOD" ballasts that are able to cope with the spectrum required for Reef tanks, come in at trade cost around $75 before any wiring, quick fire end caps.
Ballasts normally will fire 2 tubes so before you even get off the starting block you are upto $300 trade cost in ballasts before anything else for your 8 lamp set up.
Extrusion is very expensive also and so too is UV protected clear acrylic for bulb protection. I wish it was as easy as you say, bend a lump of metal! Hmmm you seen the tooling involved to get cnc precise fixtures?
Add to that, polished single reflectors, electronics etc etc it does not take much to work out where most the cost lies
If you can find tubes for $5 a piece ($40 stated 8 x 5 ) that produce the correct spectrum also, I will buy 1,000 from you today!!
To get a lamp less than $500 I would be very concerned to what i was buying.
Remember you cant put a shop light in the same catagory as a lamp for a dedicated reef system, they are two completely different beasts. One is there just to produce a visual illumination, the other is to replicate the natural sun. Not an easy task.
Last edited by Aqua-Digital; 11-17-2008 at 02:13 PM.
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