I went to take my bulbs out, and on the one end it looks like there is a black box with 4 wires coming out, but i can for the life of me pull it apart… any thoughts? It’s coralife Lunar aqualights
grab the plastic base and pull straight out, if there is a little plastic thumb tab pop it up first, if not it should just pull out.
Mkay let me go try again brb
nope, no button… and i pull but nothing budges… uhh
prolly just been in there awhile… pull your *ss off. they will come. try wiggling up and down a little… sometimes the pins come right outta the bulb. gotta pull em with a pair of pliers
pryed them off… very rusty you can tell salt got to them…
figured…
Just ordered replacements, im hoping these will peform better… last bulbs were stock…and 4 months old
what kind of lighting do you have? pcs or t-5s?
if u ever need spare parts, im about to gut my old pc and put in some t-5s, im just saving up for the ballast…
got PC… your building your T-5… is it cheaper than buying…
i bought my first t-5 off craiglist/the forum and got a killer deal…when i contacted the guy i found out it was the same person…
i ended up getting the 6 bulb for like $200…at the ECA frag swap there was a guy selling the light that was on the frag swap tank for $300…it was a 8 bulb, but he didnt speak too highly of the reflectors which is something i just thought of…
good reflectors help a lot with directing more light into the tank…my 6 bulb fixture has individual reflectors…it is noticably brighter than fixtures with one reflectors for all the bulbs…
[quote=“Marchingbandjs, post:10, topic:2246”]
your building your T-5… is it cheaper than buying…[/quote]
Retrofitting your own T5s can be cheaper and crappier then a premade fixture and it can be more expensive and better then a premade. Could go either way. A lot of times when people start to really look into it and figure out what the best reflectors are and what is the best ballast they end up spending more, but get a lot more light to their corals. I use T5 retro fits on all of my grow out tanks accept one.
Ya, i really dont know where to go with that, i think i will just keep what i have until after colege
the reflectors alone seem to cost more than the light units themselves!!! (need to find someone that can bow thin sheets of stainless/polished aluminum)
the reflectors alone seem to cost more than the light units themselves!!! (need to find someone that can bow thin sheets of stainless/polished aluminum)
there was a DIY thread on RC for building a lumenbright clone. If i recall, the costs associated with the materials were about half of the retail cost of the reflectors and the PAR results were very close by comparison. There are PDF templates you can download for the lumenbright project and i would imagine that T5 reflectors would be much easier. As far as bending the aluminum there isnt much to it. You can make a DIY die with just about any rigid straight edge and a 50# bag of sand. It will make very clean, professional looking bends. The biggest hurdle is finding a low-cost, local supplier for the aluminum so you can get full sheet rates without the costs of shipping.
Lol, so i always thought a ballast was like a light boy was i wrong… lol… Haha wow
went to local harware store going out of business… They had a ballast for 30, reflectors for like 5 bucks, the end caps were cheap… and they had t-5 Bulbs i think they went from 3000k to 6500k i was about to make some t-5 6500k for my frag tank but then decided against it…
so i got shop lights to light my fish room instead