Cheap lighting HQI... to good to be true?

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by Foxface

Has anybody tried these fixtures? 2x250mh, 4x54w t5, 6 moon lights, 1 cooling fan.
Odyssea 48" 716W Metal Halide System Advance Plus. For 289.00 plus free shipping. Sounds like it might be worth a try!

This is the exact fixture that I have, only I paid about a hundred more for it 2 years ago and mine came with Odyssea ballasts. After shipping and duty the whole thing was about 700. The Odyssea ballasts sucked, and they came with '1500K' bulbs that were way more yellow than my phoenix 14K bulbs. I upgraded to Vertex ballasts and the Phoenix bulbs at the same time and my tank went through major light shock.

For the price I think it's an awesome fixture. It's sleek looking, the moonlights are actually a really beautiful colour at night and really make the red and greens glow, and I've never had any issues.

My only complaint is that it's a little hard to get apart to change the bulbs as you can only take one of the side covers off and you need to slide two LED panels to get at the farthest MH bulb. This requires disconnecting the LED wiring, which requires long, skinny fingers. Putting it all back together was a little frustrating too.

However, for something I do once a year, the price is definitely worth it.