Coralife Fixture Mods?

[globaldesigns]

Originally Posted by Madreefer

It's 29" deep. So what is a good ballast? I know the Coralife are junk and was waiting for them to go on the fritz before a potential upgrade. I don't need 400w I'm on breakup and just bored. When I'm bored I usually like to spend money. Fixture's 3 years old so just getting prepared.

Actually the Coralife ballasts are not junk. They are magnetic, but I did some research after blowing the ignitor in mine when I tried to upgrade the ballast. I found out my 250W ballasts really do push out that wattage, not like some people say, and they are quite good magnetic ballasts.

If you want to upgrade the wattage, you will need to remove the 2 ignitors in the fixture itself, these units also have tied into them the fan, so you will have to do some rewiring to remove the ignitors and tie the fan into some other power. Then I don't think you will have a problem with just using 400W ballasts with bulbs.

If you don't remove the ignitors and try a third party ballast, you will have a nuclear cloud come out of your fixture.

[mseepman]

Rather than change the MH's I just changed the PC's over to 4 T5HO's which made a dramatic change for me. It was a lot easier than doing the MH changeover.

[Madreefer]

Originally Posted by mseepman

Rather than change the MH's I just changed the PC's over to 4 T5HO's which made a dramatic change for me. It was a lot easier than doing the MH changeover.

Care to share the details and what to get?

[andestang]

I have an old Coralife PC fixture I'd like to turn into T5's..... I'll have to do some checking.

[mseepman]

Here's the link to my mod...http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=40368

Enjoy

[Sebae again]

I did a t5 mod by trimming out the ends of the reflectors and using the end caps and external ballasts of 2 Hagen Glo kits. I was able to put 4 of the 4 foot T5 in my 4 foot Coralife unit and I left the spring clips with the stock rubber bands in. Tight fit but worked out perfect.

[Madreefer]

Originally Posted by mseepman

Here's the link to my mod...http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=40368

Enjoy

Thats awesome! Thank alot. I think I'm just gonna go to an electrical supplier and get T5 end caps and ballasts that will work. Probably much cheaper as the package won't say anything like marine or aquarium.

[Madreefer]

So I'm in the process of ordrering the supplies to do this to my fixture. But I need to know the dimensions of this ballast before I order. Does anyone know the dimensions. J&L is too busy to look for me.

http://www.jlaquatics.com/product/sl...t+Ballast.html

[Madreefer]

Thanks Mseepman! Your mod was really helpful and made me finally decide to do this. My fixture is a 48" and my PC's were only 34" so I gained a good amount.


So I got 2 of these ballasts and 8 eight end caps from Nedco.$131


These are the ballasts I removed. I found burned marrett and replaced them as well with better ones.

I thought I could slip these ballasts over the reflector for the MH but they are a little too fat. So I screwed them on to the back of the fixture and they are only visible from the back of the tank anyways.

I just removed the clips for the PC's and screwed the capends to the reflector.
Here they are on.


Here's my tank with only the 4 54w T5's turned on. I got the cheap Coralife Actinic bulbs from J&L for $13.88 each. With shipping it was about $80. I'm sure I could have done it for cheaper yet so I'm happy for $210