T5 lighting question

[mrhasan]

Along with Greg's reply, I would like to add the following:

Yes you do get what you pay for (poor bulbs, poor reflectors and poor equipment). There are certain things that you need to consider which varies between person to person. For me, one big hit on money is worse than slow hit on money. That's why I prefer T5s over LEDs (along with other reasons).

Then, these cheap fixtures are there in the market for one reason: there are people who buy these! And if they didn't have even the most minute success, they wouldn't be on the market (something that is happening with loads of chinese generic led manufacturers). If you look around, one of the premium brand of these cheap T5 fixtures are Odyssea. There are people who swear by them and also people who curse them. With these, its always a gamble but if you win, you are a winner (duh :P); or else, well, you just can't win every time With these fixtures, mostly you will need is to replace the bulbs at once with better bulbs. For T5s, the bulb comes first and then reflectors to make sure the bulb works like it should. But you have to sacrifice something at the end and thats mostly the reflectors. But odyssea and fishneedit reflectors are much much better from other chinese brands (heard that).

I think, if you stick to cheaper T5, you should only look at feedneedit (google it to find their website; but they stopped shipping to canada but will ship at your risk) and oddysea (cool fixture; got built in timers and stuffs; google aquatraders). I have a oddysea 4bulb 36" fixture on its way from there. I am hoping to do a small review on it. I do plan to change the bulbs.

And since the reflectors are poor, I think you should go for, perhaps, 8 bulbs? Not sure about it though but its always better to overkill a bit with these fixtures.

At the end, if I can save some money, I would definitely go for better fixture (I ordered sunlight but someone before me took it) but there's just the limited amount I can stretch.

In the end, its up to you to take the risk or take the hit on money at the first place