Aqua Traders

[FitoPharmer]

i always hear Odyssea ballasts are notoriously cheap and prone to failure whenever aqua traders gets brought up in a post for buying cheap lighting. i have also heard they are rather dim for their wattage even when they are working fine. IMO i would stay away, for me it falls into the "too good to be true category" but then again i do remember they were always talking about the odyssea MH ballasts, maybe their t-5 systems are better.

[muck]

There were reports of some of these units even catching fire a few years back.

[Ryan]

Originally Posted by muck

There were reports of some of these units even catching fire a few years back.

I have heard the same thing.

[Eb0la11]

Ouch.

[Red Coral Aquariums]

I have been running the 4 bulb HO T5's on 4 of my softy tanks for going on 16 months without a bit of problem. The bulbs that come with them are cheap and I replaced them out with a kz coral 10k, kz new gen 15k, kz fiji purple, and a D+D aticnic +. My corals are doing excellent.
Kevin

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Yeah, I've heard that you basically buy it for the unit (at least the MH models). Replace the ballasts & bulbs. Doesn't seem like such a good deal after all, IMO.

These T5s though are not in the same crappy category as the old "fire hazard" mh units.

Anthony

[ScubaSteve]

Ya, I almost went the Aquatraders direction as well recently to start my second tank (you know, being a poor PhD student and all...). I was looking at the MH mostly and those seem to be not of the best quality. The t5's on the other hand I have heard some decent things about and, like they said above, switch to better bulbs. The one thing about the t5 units, and someone please correct me if I am wrong, is that they don't have reflectors, thus your output is not as stellar as it could be.

For the same price point but maybe a little better try the Fishneedit units (http://www.fishneedit.com/t5ho-ligh.html). I've heard good things about them. They've got reflectors and everything.

If you have a friend in the states or access to a PO box, try Amazon of all places. They have retardly cheap deals on good lights from time to time... they don't ship to Canada though.

Finally, ask around this site. I got a wicked MH system from someone here for a good price and I could not be happier (It's a little overkill... but hey, go big or go home, right?). I'm sure there is someone with some lights for sale... right guys and gals?