LtHighlighter
New member
I do agree that there are better options for lighting a tank, and in most reef setups MH would be the best choice.
There are CFL bulbs with higher colour temperatures, I saw some 10K ones online somewhere but they were a lot more expensive.
All of my saltwater tanks are nanos (3-30 gallons) and CFL for me make a great compromise between price / performance.
Urbansage, I do agree that if you have $2000 in corals and other equipment that skimping on lights is probibly a poor idea. However most of my tanks don't have any more that 10$ freshwater filters (just for the flow and top of water disturbance) and depend on 25% weekly changes (not too difficult on a 10 gallon tank) so investing over 100$ on any light fixture seems out of the question for those systems to me.
And after a year in the tanks they are slowly replacing my regular lightbulbs in my house
Like everything in this hobby, there are tons of ways to do everything.
There are CFL bulbs with higher colour temperatures, I saw some 10K ones online somewhere but they were a lot more expensive.
All of my saltwater tanks are nanos (3-30 gallons) and CFL for me make a great compromise between price / performance.
Urbansage, I do agree that if you have $2000 in corals and other equipment that skimping on lights is probibly a poor idea. However most of my tanks don't have any more that 10$ freshwater filters (just for the flow and top of water disturbance) and depend on 25% weekly changes (not too difficult on a 10 gallon tank) so investing over 100$ on any light fixture seems out of the question for those systems to me.
And after a year in the tanks they are slowly replacing my regular lightbulbs in my house

Like everything in this hobby, there are tons of ways to do everything.