[satsuma]

I brought some 10k 250W DE MH lamps from a US based eBay trader, they arrived today and they seem to be very good value for money. They don't look too dissimilar in quality to the old arcadia lamps I replaced.

They were £25 for two lamps including postage and took two weeks to arrive.

If anyone is looking for a cheaper alternative I give these guys the thumbs up...

Trust Deal Lights

[ben]

i just wonder how acurate the kelvin is and how long it will last. buying cheap bulbs can be a big mistake sometimes.
also the ballast may have an affect too

[satsuma]

Low Kelvin (4.5K or 6K) lamps are reasonable (£20?) in this country but as soon as they get to aquarium Kelvins they jump up by another £20. I am no manufacturing expert but I know it wouldn't cost anymore to make a 10K lamp than a 6K one.

As far as I know they will last at least 6 months, the elements and materials used to make the lamps can't differ too greatly as the science must be the same. Also at £10 per lamp you can buy 4 lamps for the price of one UK brought budget one.

Americans are sticklers for quality and value for money, plus the seller has 6000+ feedback and has been selling these lamps for a number of years.

[ben]

worth the gamble i guess. i looked at the single ended ones and it says only suitable for the probe start ballast, so i guess they are no good with electronic ballasts

[satsuma]

I had a few questions before I brought them. I sent a message and they got back to me within half an hour, I sent my ballast info and they confirmed the lamps were suitable.

For £25 you can't buy 2 x 39w T5 tubes

I will post some pics of the light and growth in a couple of weeks.

[ben]

yeh keep us updated

[karpman]

like most things in the reef industry the UK has the highest prices lol so many think inferior if a cheaper deal is sort.....

if the guy down the road was selling branded fags at half price would you ignore

[ben]

just watch out for algae ,as i friend tried them and it cause a lot of bad algaes to grow.

[Norvern Rob]

I'd never buy cheap halide lamps again - I made the mistake of trying a couple of the cheap lamps from Ebay (not the ones from the seller in this thread though). I fitted them, one flickered on and off so I replaced it withan old one, then I came home the next day and the other had failed to start but the unit kept trying to start it - the cables from the ballast to the mounting blocks had burned right through and I could smell burning as soon as I walked in the house!

Either the quality control on the lamps was exceedingly crap, or i'm just incredibly unlucky -either way I won't be buying cheap lamps again, i've had Arcadia and several sets of Marine Lux and all have been perfect, 2 out of 2 of the cheap ones were faulty.

Rob

[satsuma]

There is cheap and there is cheap. I'm not saying that these ones are identical to a 'branded' lamp but I would say they are the same quality as the ones you would pay £30-£40 for in the UK.

These ones are branded PLUSRITE they have a CE and ISO 9001 mark they also have UV stop. As yet they have worked fine and start well, during the resent gales the power went off four times while I was out.

[karpman]

its true i imagine theres always gonna be poor quality on the market but cheap compared to the high priced branded equipment does not = crap.

when i had halides i purchased new 20k lamps via P.PIRATES, cheap as chips and perfect for the duration.

[akuku]

I started with 150W later and at the monet I use 400W bulbs. From my experiences some cheap bulbs can be as good or sometime even better than brands like Arcadia, BLV, Aqua Medic, Reeflux etc. I spend small fortune on bulbs . Some people blame that cheap bulbs from some manufacturer can give different colour but this also happend to me with brand new famous brands. Some cheap bulbs are crap but some not. I have at the moment 400W SE Plusrite and I am very happy.

Ballast can make big difference what you can simply observe if you have externall and few different brands to tests

[satsuma]

Thought I would update on the lamps.

I took some photo's on the first day I installed the lamps which was the 11th March and I took some more yesterday. I'm new to SPS and halides and I have only had the corals since the start of March, they were from a system shut down which had old lamps and as a result the corals had lost some colour. This gives a more dramatic change than normal but I think it shows that the corals like the new lamps.

I went for 10k lamps because I like prefer natural colour, but I was disappointed when I swapped out the old 20k lamps as the colours seemed to vanish. Also because the inherent die back from the light upgrade the tank looked brown!. But now the colours have started to return to the corals and they are looking lovely

[satsuma]

One of pretty much the entire tank taken yesterday, shows the colours close to as they apear to the eye. Waiting for the purple algae to come back, most of it was bleached out when I swapped to Halides.



Edit:

Added this one below, taken four days (2 weeks ago) after the new lamps. Not as good a photo, but it shows some difference in colour on the coral tips and also some growth.

[Crabbit]

Good link keep us posted how you get on. I have had problems with expensive bulbs as well its not just the cheep ones that mess your tank up. Good luck with it all and thanks for letting us know

[satsuma]

A couple more update photos. The colours still seem to be returning . I will post again in a couple of weeks.

[satsuma]

[ben]

yeh things are defo improving

[Crabbit]

Looking all good and a step in the right direction. Well done