kien's 150g Room Divider Mixed Reef & Stuff

[kien]

Well, it's official.. my beloved light fixture has given up the ghost. Last year it was a blown ballast which I easily replaced (thanks to some grow-op suppliers on Amazon), but now one of my light fixtures is blowing out bulbs At at first I thought it was just a dead bulb so I ordered a new one (they're $78 now). As soon as I plugged it in, POOF. $78 up in a proverbial puff of smoke. It's not the ballast this time because I've done the ballast musical chairs thing to test them all out and they all work fine. There must be a circuit inside the fixture that's shorted or something. I'm not an electrician and I don't really want to spend the time to crack it open to debug it further so I am officially on the hunt for a new light fixture now.

Sadly, I may have no choice but to go LED. If I can I'd like to go hybrid LED/T5. Actually, if I can, I'd like to get a whole new Halide/T5 fixture! I think Giessmman still makes them?

[Reef Pilot]

Haha, Radions on the way... And you can tweek the spectrum to make the corals any color you want. Blue and black to some, and white and gold to others...

[xenon]

Originally Posted by kien

if I can, I'd like to get a whole new Halide/T5 fixture! I think Giessmman still makes them?

Yep!

Have a look at the Giessmman spectra.

That is the fixture I decided to go with on our new cube display.

[WarDog]

What about a Hamilton Tech halide/T5?

[Bblinks]

I thought this day would never come....I vote ATI hybrid all the way, LED has its place in the hobby but it does need supplementation and with the hybrid module its the perfect combination. If you don't want to spend that kind of money I would also look into T5 fixtures but if all fails, we can always go back to the trust worthy MH with T5s.

[FishingGoalie]

Originally Posted by kien

Well, it's official.. my beloved light fixture has given up the ghost. Last year it was a blown ballast which I easily replaced (thanks to some grow-op suppliers on Amazon), but now one of my light fixtures is blowing out bulbs At at first I thought it was just a dead bulb so I ordered a new one (they're $78 now). As soon as I plugged it in, POOF. $78 up in a proverbial puff of smoke. It's not the ballast this time because I've done the ballast musical chairs thing to test them all out and they all work fine. There must be a circuit inside the fixture that's shorted or something. I'm not an electrician and I don't really want to spend the time to crack it open to debug it further so I am officially on the hunt for a new light fixture now.

Sadly, I may have no choice but to go LED. If I can I'd like to go hybrid LED/T5. Actually, if I can, I'd like to get a whole new Halide/T5 fixture! I think Giessmman still makes them?

I Still am loving my ATI Hybrid T5 Powermodule problem is you tank is so long so it may get expensive.

[kien]

Originally Posted by lockrookie

How long is your tank? I can sell us my old halide t5 if interested just have to figure out how to package it

It's a six footer!

Originally Posted by sphelps

If it's not the ballast the wiring inside the fixture is incredibly simple. I would consider replacing the socket and wire, otherwise you're totally using this as an excuse to get what you've always wanted anyway

I'm going to play around with the ballast some more. You may be right.. Although I swear I swapped them around but maybe I didn't plug them in right (they are quite aways from my tank). At any rate, you got any LEDs for sale?

Originally Posted by FishinGoalie

I Still am loving my ATI Hybrid T5 Powermodule problem is you tank is so long so it may get expensive.

Ya, now that I'm in the market for new lights again (again), I'm looking at all my options. I do like those hybrid powermodules. The longest ones they make are 60" which I think would be fine on my tank. Sure they are prices but no matter what I end up with it's going to cost me a good chunk of change I suspect. Maybe I'll get lucky and find someone who has shut down their reef tank to convert it into a swamp tank and no longer has a need for their 4 Mitras..

[sphelps]

Sorry swamps need mitras too

[kien]

Well, looks like it was a false alarm, again ! I was sure this time that the light fixture itself was toast, but after proper testing I discovered that it was just a bad ballast once again. Like last time, I scoured the web (retailers) for another replacement (Galaxy Ballast) but could no longer find any! Again, I was certain that I would finally have to give up on my halide fixture and get a new light, possibly LED.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), after a routine visit with the boys at Concept Aquariums I discovered that they had a supplier that had ballasts that would work with my Sunlight Supply Maristar fixture! So of course I ordered two (one as a backup).





One of these is not like the others..



Now I'm kicking myself for not ordering 3 of them so that they all matched, and using the existing Galaxy Ballasts as spares/backups.

[kien]

Also..

I recently discovered this little gem!



OH EM GEE! This is one of the best purchases I have ever made! It's essentially a kent scraper with a magnet! So much easier to clean the glass now that it only takes one pass and not 10 like it did with my old magfloat/shark.



And as an added bonus I can now scrape down BELOW my sand line without worrying about scratching the glass (not that it really matters now that my tank is already scratched up all to hell; DAMN YOU MAGFLOAT!)

So much awesome!