Lighting issues

Zilla23

Established Member
Hi All, it's been a minute since I posted!! due to all this virus crap I have been working from home, so I have had to move Ripley and ALL his stuff into my house, so that was a chore (note to self, make enclosure lighter o_O). He is all happy now in my home office and he gets to go outside everyday in the hot Alabama sun!!. Anyway, I have had issues with my light, I originally had an Odyssea quad T5 fixture with three 6500K daylight bulbs and one 6% Arcadia UVB bulb and that worked great UNTIL two of the bulbs quit working, determined it was an issue with the fixture, was able to get a refund from original seller and purchased ANOTHER Odyssea quad with same bulb set up, well since the move, now THIS fixture did the exact same thing, two bulbs not working, determined it is an issue with the ballast, (two light fixtures in a year) I did some research and apparently this fixture has this issue A LOT, not to mention the bulbs are REALLY had to get in and out of the fixture. So now I am looking for an alternative. I found the Reptisun T5 LED/UVB fixture seen here https://zoomed.com/t5-reptisun-led-uvb-terrarium-hood/
it has the 24" size option, what are your thoughts on this, I found a few posts on the good/bad of LED but nothing that really would make me think this light would not be a good option since I can still use my Arcadia 6% T5 bulb in it and the addition of red/blue lights are said to be good for the plant growth in my bioactive. I really want to stick with an all inclusive fixture because I have space restraints but after TWO duds with the Odyssea I am NOT going that option again (which is sad since it's a really nice concept with a built in timer and everything :confused: ) TIA for opinions.
 
https://www.amazon.com/Hydrofarm-Agrobrite-FLT24-Fluorescent-System/dp/B002JQBQZQ

They have these nice balasts:
https://www.fulham.com/product-syst...horse-ballasts/workhorse-in-fixture-ballasts/

If you are feeling froggy, you can just replace (odds are the unit comes with two balasts) with a workhorse.

I took the whole thing apart, from what I can figure there were only one ballast that somehow branches off into the four bulbs (2 each) and it didn't match any ballast that I can order for a replacement, my husband (who is more electronically inclined than me) looked at it as well and determined that we could not replace the part that we think is the issue ?‍♀️
 
I took the whole thing apart, from what I can figure there were only one ballast that somehow branches off into the four bulbs (2 each) and it didn't match any ballast that I can order for a replacement, my husband (who is more electronically inclined than me) looked at it as well and determined that we could not replace the part that we think is the issue ?‍♀️

Like i said, you can always retro fit.
4ft is 54 watts. 2ft is 27 watts

If you have a quad 24"(well 22") then you need 108 watts(140 watts recommended since 4 bulb). Which means you can buy the workhorse WH6-120-L 140watt unit.
 
Like i said, you can always retro fit.
4ft is 54 watts. 2ft is 27 watts

If you have a quad 24"(well 22") then you need 108 watts(140 watts recommended since 4 bulb). Which means you can buy the workhorse WH6-120-L 140watt unit.

Ok, I will try that! Thanks!! Do you have any thoughts on the LED vs. T5 for the daylight source?
 
I’ve had good short term plant success with the reptisun UVB/LED. And I’ve grown plenty of aquatic plants under LEDs
 

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So I opted for the ZooMed LED/UVB combo, I have to say, this is a really nice light, I found it on Amazon and with some credits I already had I got it down to about $83.00, it is very thin (only about an inch thick) and streamlined, you have the option to set it on top of the enclosure with some feet provided (but the feet are just a tad too wide for the ReptiBreeze enclosure I have) or it comes with a kit to suspend it from the ceiling. I am going to suspend it from the ceiling because it's reading a tad too high on my Solarmeter when installed on top of the enclosure. These LED lights make HUGE difference, light penetrates WAY more than the four T5 linear 6500K I had and the red and blue LED's add a beautiful color to the enclosure. The only drawback is that it does not have an internal timer so I will have to get an external timer, it has two power sources, one for the T5 UVB and one for all the LED's so you could set a timer for each but you can't set a timer for the red and white LED's to go off and leave the blue on at night, there are three switches on the side, one for the UVB, one for red and white LED's and one for the blue LED's, so you would have to manually turn the blue switch on at night if you wanted it to stay on when the timer cuts off, but since everything I read on this forum said that cham's don't really care about a blue light at night, I am not worried about that. I am super happy with this light. I will update as to how the plants like it, as you can see they did very well with the old T5 set up I had, I hope to see an even better result with the new LED's. Thank you all for your advice!!
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