There is actually one semi-useful light you can get at most homedepot
stores- the Lights of America 65W Flourolux. It is a mogle based power
compact bulb at 6400k and comes in a outdoor or worklight fixture. They
cost under $40 and can be used for soft corals quite nicely. I have 2 on my
30g propagation tank- color is OK and growth has been impressive. I have a
variety of leathers, nepthea, colts, mushrooms, polyps and even some LPS
like hammer, bubble and elegance under them. All of the corals show better
in my display tank with 50/50 PC lighting but don't grow as fast.

Reefcentral has had a few threads on the use. Mine have run for over 6
months. I added ventilation holes to the enclosure to allow heat to build
up based on comments about the electronic ballasts frying and have not had
an issue. I eventually added polished aluminum flashing to the inner
surface of the housing for better reflection- they come with a white painted
reflector.

Sam Mancuso


"richard reynolds" wrote in message
. ..
Hummmm wondering out loud here. What is so special about the more
expensive lighting? Is it the bulb? or is it the fixture? Just
wondering if Home Depot would have something that would work for a lot
less money. I don't mind suspending it over the tank.

home depot is great if you want to light your garage or patio, or even
your refugium or
ATS, the problem with homedepot light is you dont get very efficient color
spectrum output
and usually its high in yellow and red, even IF it apears to be brighter
and it very well
might, it will do very little good over a reef, as it will grow algae
faster and wont be
as productive towards corals. so once you move into the specific light
fixtures for reefs,
the cost break is what style of light and how its pre configured, you can
have the same
wattage PC as MH and the other way around for the same cost, the MH
fixture will be
cheaper(not always bad) or the PC fixture will be more $$$ (not alwasy
good) one nice
thing about MH is all the light comes from a small area so its easier to
direct, a bad
thing about that is its harder to cover shadows created by a single point
light. PC and
VHO are the oposite there light is not directed upon a small area, and
shadows are less,
but lighting that prized clam is more dificult

another smaller issue as most of them have quick fixes most home depot
lights are not
really suited for suspension over water, along that lines some of the
aquarium lights are
not so great in that area either

HTH
Vicki

--
--
richard reynolds



~Vicki ~ wrote in message
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