I have a 26 gallon bowfront with some fish a cleaner shrimp some live rock and some soft coral. My t5 coralife light just went out. I'm pretty sure it's the ballast but can't find a replacement. The problem is I just got laid off and dont have the 100 bucks to replace it. I need something to keep up with everything I have in my tank. Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated
NEVER use a different ballast. Forget about the danger, but a different ballast will NOT light the bulb the same, if it lights the bulb at all on a T-5. Here is a t-5 ballast for 23 bucks
http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/store/fulh ...
If all you need is another working ballast, I would start looking around in Thrift Stores. They get and have boxes full of electrical accessories laying around that you may have to dig through to find what you want, but for the price/s it's more than worth it! I have never needed a ballast, but I've seen all kinds of them there. In the meantime, you can Mickey Mouse a light by using any cheap lamp behind a colored filter such as window tint. As for a color filter just use your imagination.
What I would do is purchase some LED water proof lights. They're very cheap!
pets question and answers,www.5d2d.com A lot of kitchen shops will stock them, and I would stick them to the hood.
Make sure you get a fair few however, as LEDs do not nearly have as high an output as the T5 florescent which I'm assuming you have.
If you re running on Haliods, I would be wary with using LEDS, the corals will not know what hit them with such a weak output after the haloids.
Call the manufacturer. Many companies will replace or repair the light. It is best to contact the store you bought it from first as well.
Some brands offer a lifetime guarantee, others have a more limited guarantee. What brand of light?
I repair and replace lights all the time. CurrentUSA and Corallife are two examples of quality brands that will work with you on parts and repairs in most cases.
How old is the light? What makes you think it is the ballast? Did you check the wires and bulbs first?
I know that a 27 watt ballast from a twisty CFL can be used to replace a ballast for the 27 Watt PC lights in a nanocube or aquacube. This is done by some people because the ballast is cooler running.
pets question and answers,www.5d2d.com
I'm sure that the ballast in the t5 could be replaced by any standard fluorescent ballast as long as the ballast is very similar in wattage as the bulbs. Should tell the watts on the ballast in the hood.
As for any other light ..... you could almost forget it but your best option would be 6500k CFL's. I would guess you would need atleast 8 of them at 27 watt though. The biggest problem is that you loose light intensity really quick with distance so if you absolutely had to use CFLs you would need to move your corals closer to the light. Even then I'd not put money on it working to great although it would be far better than anything less than t5s.
If you went with any kind of LED lights, you would need about 100 of them. LED is not something for coral unless you got some serious led rig that would cost you a few hundred bucks.
For the person mentioning using a tinted film to change light color, that is the worst idea imaginable. All that does is block all the spectrum of light except for the ones that pass through the film. That reduces your light dramatically. Slightly wrong spectrum of light are far better than reducing your light. 10000k-12000k and actinics contain higher concentrations of the spectrum that are most effective in growth. actinic helps simulate filtered light at deeper water depths, while 10000k is a blue spectrum more so than 6500k daylight bulbs. Blue spectrums of light effect vegetative growth in plants or in this case, the algae stuff in the corals.
