An idea about Lighting.

Just starting

Just starting

I am just cycling tho 100g I plan to add 4 more for 6 x 54w t5. Ice cap if I can dig up the $350 for a 4 lamp retro setup. On the t5 thread they are very well thought of. I am amazed how bright just 2 lamps are, If it was fish only it would be enough.
 
I agree with BeanAnimal - lights are lights - if it comes with a proper electronic ballast, waterproof endcaps (even if it doesnt, your not going to be dunking it in water I hope) and a reflector, then it works. Save some money and go for it! Most of what we do is DIY anyway. Feel free to experiment.
 
well...

The important part here is the REFLECTOR quality and focus. Some ballasts my push the SAME bulbs harder than others, but that is another subject.

The advantage of T5 bulbs is that they can use a very small and well engineered SLR (single lamp reflector) to get a large portion of the light directly to the focus area with the fewest number of reflections and little shadow from the narrow bulb.

Bean
 
The reflector used on the second setup is the same reflector used in many high end aquarium t5's. As for being ugly, was considering turning one into a retro unit anyways.
 
IDK what the verdict was o n this whole thing beceaus i just saw it now, and cant read all fo the posts, BUT, if you havent found something, here is a link to a really cheap TEK light, it is 48", has the polished mirrored reflectors, and is only a couple dollars more than the one in the second link you posted......

http://www.globeaqua.com/teklight_lighting.html

:)
 
My big concern with using one of these is the ballast more than anything, What I mean is that anyone could go to home depot or lowes and pick up a electronic 250W MH ballast for about 50 bucks but instead we dish out some big bucks for these things and the reason why is that these workhorse ballast that you get from home depot and what not, at least to my knowledge, seriously destroy the life of the bulb due to the way they are fired I think. So the ballast probably wouldn't last as long as well as the bulbs, just something to think about.
 
Well yes...thats why you need to find one thats not an instant start but rather a slow start electronic ballsast. I belive the ones on the original post are the good electronic slow start ballasts.
 
jsl I appreciate the added info! Like I mentioned before I do not know that much about how lighting fixtures are made up, and now I know there is a difference between instant fire and slow fire.

Do Flourescent Ballast come in slow fire, or just MH?
 
to be honest I know next to jack about ballasts and how they fire, it was just something I ran into when I was looking at picking up my MH and HQI setups, so not really a 2 cents maybe a 1 and a half cent opinion on things :-)
 
Interesting tid bit on instant start vs rapid start.

Instant start ballasts put more stress on the lamp when it's started, therefore slightly reducing lamp life, but they also use less electricity. However, at about 12 or more hours of operation per start, lamps on instant start ballasts have about the same lamp life as those on rapid start ballasts.
 
Ok, well it seams if you purchase a ballast besides an ice cap, you would save QUITE a bit of the cost. Basically 60 (for 2 ballastwise ballasts) vs 140 (the cheapest I could find a ice cap 660 ballast on ebay). I'm looking into reflector cost at the moment.
 
Ok, after doing all the research.

This link ends up being the best deal. You buy two of these to get 4x54w.

http://www.hellolights.com/482x54wt5hor.html

It will cost you ~240 to do the same thing buying parts from different sites, then having to pay shipping to different sites, yadda yadda.

Well if anything useful came out of this thread, it was someone provided a link to a good deal on a t5 retro :)
 
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