What is this light?

[kamikaziechameleon]

I was perusing ebay looking for a cheap lighting solution for my open top planted tank and saw this.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/20-24-30-36...ain_0&var=&hash=item4160905478#ht_1844wt_1396

I'm really attracted to the price and design but I'm not sure what it is. Has anyone bought one of these lights before???

 

[kamikaziechameleon]

I messaged the seller he got back to quickly. Its a "power compact" light fixture. 5 year warranty. Well at that price might as well give it a shot right what are your guys thoughts?

 

[kamikaziechameleon]

I got some feed back from another forum saying it is old tech and not worth the money for what I'm doing. They said T-5HO will serve me best. So now I'm looking at this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/36-3FT-T5-H...ltDomain_0&hash=item4602a287a9#ht_2913wt_1163

Let me know your thoughts.

 

[Gill Blue]

I would go T5HO before I went power compact. however it is my belief that LED technology is now the way to go and will be giving my T5HO fixture to my brother when I upgrade to LED floods on my new tank.

 

[kamikaziechameleon]

I agree to an extent. I won't invest in a HO LED fixture right now. Even on ebay I'd need to drop 150 and up for a comparable fixture. If I planned on having this tank going for longer than 12-18 months I would make that investment but I'm really just growing out stuff and getting experience for my eventual rimless 60x30x18... That i'll do LED DIY.

 

[kamikaziechameleon]

Ok, well ordered it we will see how it turns out.

 

[kamikaziechameleon]

The T-5 worked great though the energy consumption was ridiculous. My roommate uses it now.

 

[kamikaziechameleon]

So trying to figure out the Wattage vs lumens proposition. Seems that LED is not as good as T-5 HO yet. A single T-5 HO for 54 watts putts out more lumens (approximately 5,000) vs the 3,300 Lumens of a similar 4 ft LED double bright running 55 Watts. If we can't strike up a dialogue here I might start a new thread. I currently have T-5 and LED for 2 diff planted tanks. Trying to discern what I want to use for the rest of my tanks.