metal halides from home depot?

[sabazerehi]

ok i don't want to sound stupid but i was talking to an electrician and i found out that home depot sells metal halides and their fixtures, a 150 watt he told me was around 70-80 bucks. am i missing something because this would be a crazy amount cheaper than most of the stuff i've seen out there. i feel like it's a little too good to be true. are these different in some way then metal halides used on fish tanks?

 

[rustybucket145]

You can actually get the ballast kits cheaper at your local electric supply house. The bulbs however are a different story. Most bulbs used in commercial applications are somewhere around 5600 Kelvins. A yellowish light. Which makes aquarium water look like pee .

So get your ballast kit from the local electric store, get an ammo box to house the ballast in, some wire and order a 10k, 14k or 20k bulb from ebay for $9. And there you have it, an ultra cheap Metal halide lighting system. Will it be the best on the market? of course not, will it work? Of course!! Yay DIY!!

 

[sabazerehi]

wow that's so cool, unfortunately i'm not much of an electrician but i will check this out more and see if i can figure it out. any help would be great, any idea which one specifically would be good to get?

 

[barrysalt]

If you don't want to mess with DIY, but still get a good light at relatively cheap, try Lights4Less.com. Complete outfit, ready to plug in at $105, with choice of bulb. I got mine a month ago, no problems, works fine. Ballast comes in a black ammo box!
Barry

 

[barrysalt]

Whoops. Just realized that Lights4less is the store name on an eBay site, under "aquarium lighting" They are on there all thetime, and their price is steadily advertised. Sorry about the confusion. Hope you can look them up.