Metal Halide retro

[George771177]

Metal halide 400 watt MH aquarium light 14k 14000k. Its an open hood retro kit system that comes with a ballast.aquariumfixture.jpgI tried to attach it not sure if it worked. its under metal halide lights on ebay and cost $134.89 with shipping under the buy now. Does anone know why this might be so cheap or has anyone everyone ever had experience with any of these open refurbished open hood reflectors. Here is the link to the light eBay i tried to hyper link this.) If anyone has any feedback on these light s i would appreciate it. Would love to get some Halides witout paying and arm and a leg. Added with my compacts would be a great lighting system.

[mps9506]

I couldn't get the ebay page to come up. However that would be the price you would pay for a reflector cheap ballast and socket at most online places. It's most likely some cheap quality or even used bulb in there.
FWIW the reflector looks like a inefficient really cheap quality reflector. The reason retro's usually cost more is they come with a nicer electronic or cooled PFO ballast, spider style reflector that is a lot more effcient, and bulb quality would be the big one.

[DrHank]

Many of the cheap MH retros are cheap on e-bay beacuse they use inexpensive (cheap) magnetic ballasts, less than optimum reflectors, and lesser quality bulbs. Will they work? Yes! Are they as good as the more expensive retro kits? NO!

[mps9506]

Most of the time you ended spending more because you end up changing the ballasts to a less noisy ballast, swap the reflectors to something more efficient, change the bulbs to something brighter or bluer (Is that a word?) or both. The only cheap kit I was ever happy with was my first 250 wat HPS Iwasaki kit just because of the insane growth I got with it. Of course the colors sucked but...

[Woodstock]

I recommend getting an ice-cap retro fit kit. This is what I bought and LOVE IT....
DIYReef

The bulb is not included.

[George771177]

thanks for all of your tips. Woodstock checked out the ink looks like a little more but like they say you get what you pay for and iam guessing if i buy the cheapest halide i can find iam going to get the cheapest metal halide quality of light. Seriously reconsidering my options. Still dont have many corals but i was thinking about buying some acans and i have a feeling that i should have Metal halides for them if iam going to go through with it. So i could either get a metal halide or buy a bunch of oft corals. In the long run i will probably always want the lite but i want the pleasure of the corals now. Decisions decisions.........

[lcstorc]

Save for the light.
Then you have even more coral choices down the line.

[mps9506]

You have a 55 with 4x65 watt lighting correct?
I think that will be fine for acan's and zoo's just keep them in the more brightly lit areas.
Keep in mind for a 55 you will want 2 halides to cover all 4 feet of tank spaces. It might be better to save up and purchase a hood system or 2 pendants later on down the line. Or you might find with the livestock you have that PC's work just fine. The problem is most of us reefer's suffer from the always gotta have better complex.

[George771177]

i was thinking about using the halide on just one side of the 55 gal tank (and keeping my power compacts still on) and keeping all the high intensity light corals on one side and the others on the other side of my tank. I am really unsure what i want to get. the retro that i found sounds good but woodstock suggested a light that looks a little Nicer except that it is an open ended retro, dont know if that even matters. I think my compacts will do well for now and i should just put back some $ for a halide light system and buy some zoas and acans. Everyone seems to think that acans will do fine under the compacts. Acans are just so expensive, but they are a very vibrant color and i want to add some eye catching colors.

[mps9506]

You might want to start with trumpets and blastos first as they can be acquired for cheaper and are very similar in care to Acans. (Well some blasto's fetch a lot of money). This way you can get a feel for how well they will do in your tank before investing in the more expensive corals.

[cheeks69]

Acans don't do very well with intense lighting anyway, I would stick with your PC's unless your going with with SPS/Clams.

[mps9506]

I think acan's look their best under 14k-20k halides Although Cheeks is right that intense lighting does seem to keep them from opening up as large it seems.

But yes, PC's on that sized tank will fit the bill.