Thoughts on these lights

Okay so I was originally going to get the reef capable LED fixture from Marineland as an upgrade to my Aquatraders T5 Unit. But for the money I was thinking maybe I should just go for a higher end T5 Fixture instead of a cheaper LED fixture. Here is the AquaticLife unit I'm looking into. It has individual reflectors and should fit on my 29 gallon aquarium. Here's the link:

AquaticLife T5 Fixture With Built In Timer

Let me know what you think. Do you guys think this is money better spent?

 

I love the Rapid LED PAR 38 bulb I got for my ten gallon. You would need two of them for your tank I think, but still cheaper than that fixture if you are good at hanging a light kit
7 LED PAR38 Bulb - Rapid LED

 

Those are pretty nice but I'm not really permitted to put holes in the ceilings where I rent currently. I'm leaning more towards a fixture that fits on top of the tank.

 

hmmm i seen some debates earlier on here about the marineland. interesting to see if this brings it back up

 

Actually Beeguiles had me sold on them and actually still does. If you look at her thread for her 29 she is seeing amazing results with them. I just really like the look of this AquaticLife fixture and I know they have pretty decent products. Plus, I want to put my lights on a timer and you cant really with the Marineland ones because 1 cord controls the nighttime and the daytime. This AquaticLife has 1 cord but a 3 phase timer to control each function.

 

but we have no idea why the timer on the packaging is set to 4:20, anybody know??
ROFL

 

Wonder what the price on those will be?

 

I still like that AquaticLife fixture. Anybody have any experience with it or know if it is any good? Saw some reviews saying it is pretty good especially for the price. Just trying to decide if its worth it to spend a little more on a decent T5 or a little less on some LED's that are cheaper. I'm not buying these tomorrow or anything I plan on saving for a bit.

 

I have a Marineland RC on my 36 bowfront and an AquaticLife 12-bulb 72' T5 on my 180 and if I was gonna setup a new tank, especially in the 30 gallon range I would choose the Marineland RC LED. I like the shimmering effect, it is bright and it does a great job with my corals. I don't like the fact that it doesn't have the ability to put the moon and whites on a separate timer as it only has one power cord. Two power cords or a timer (which I see is in the works) would make this light perfect to me. The AquaticLife does have a built in timer that allows control the whites, blues and moons individually which is a big plus. I did just recently set up a 10 gallon tank and was gonna go with the Marineland RC on it too, but I found a Beamswork LED (cheap knock off of Marineland) and for $65 as opposed to $165 I decided to give it a try. Time will tell on it's performance as I've only had it a little over a week now. You can see the different lights in the links to my tanks below. (I'm a big fan of LED's and if I had the money (hopefully in the future) I'd put AI Sol LED's on my 180.

 

So I did a little research and those AquaticLive fixture are 10.75" deep. Since I am unable to mount them from the ceiling where I'm at I don't think I could fit them on my tank anyway. I only have 8.75" of space front to back on top of my tank due to a internal protein skimmer. MikeG, how deep are the RC ligths?

 

The Marineland RC's are 5.25" wide.

 

Do you think 1 24-36 inch unit on my standard 29 gallon high would suffice?

 

Is your 29 gallon 30 inches wide? The 24-36 RC is 23 inches long so you would have 3.5 inches on each side of space. I think that would be OK. I have space on both sides of my tank where the fixture is shorter than the tank and it lights my tank up fine.

 

Come to think of it I have that same size RC on my 36 bowfront and that tanks is 30 inches wide also. So it would fit identical to mine and you can see by my 36 thread that my tank is well lit up.

 

Awesome! mine is 30" wide so it should work great. I wish I knew when the new ones with the timer would be coming out but I'll probably go with the current ones in the 24" size. I have an egg crate top right now with a hole cut out for my light I'll probably silicone a piece of acrylic over that hole to protect the light. I don't want to do away with an open top.