Odyssea 4x24w T5HO fixture and coral

[canadianbudz604]

I know alot of people dont like these lights and say they are junk. I dont find it to be that bad, and a quarter of the price. Now the bulbs are a different story. Ive got a bunch of zoas, kenya tree, green sinularia, mushrooms, a few different palys etc. I want to do a bunch of different lps plus keep everything I have now. Im not quite ready to venture into SPS yet. Question is what type of bulbs do you suggest using instead of the stock ones? I have read a few places where it says the blue bulbs in the odyssea fixture are actually pretty decent but the 10000k, not so much. What do you guys think

[daplatapus]

I'm running a 20K bulb on one side and the 15K bulb on the other.... they're both crap. I've bought 2 new 14k Hamilton's to replace them but haven't had 2 seconds to put them in yet.

[Nano]

I had the same light but the 24" 2x54w 1 250w MH I ran 2 actinics one blue one violet and one 14k bulb looked great, but the halide was a bit too much for most things in my old tank. I was happy with it, the only thing I didn't like was the fan was loud IMO. I loved each light was on a separate switch as well.

[blacknife]

go to a bigger fish store that probably have a few fixtures running.. find lights that you like.. find out what color/brand they are. hah this may not work as not all stores carry many brands. if they dont have one that you have heard about loaded in a fixture but have it in stock, ask if they will throw it in.

comes down to personal choice, wether you want a blue look, white look, purple look, the corals to pop, or the corals to grow like weeds. not sure about the oddessey t5ho lights but i have some of their pc lights in my FO tank right now. I thought they were ACTINIC which to me meant more of a violet<420nm> like my old UVL actinics, but they are actinic 460nm (blue) not as nice of a blue as the kz/ati/gleismen blue bulbs. I do not run any 10k in any of my t5 fixtures but some people do.

If they are all brand new and do not replacing you could just leave them, and buy a bulb here or bulb there to try. they will grow corals, and you may even like them.

FYI I have a 6 bulb with a 2/4 set on the switch, all gleissman bulbs as that's what the store had last time i needed bulbs. 2 actinic+(blue) on 12 hours a day. and 1 actinic+ 2 aqua-blue+(14k), 1 aqua-pink on 8 hours a day. If i had room for 2 more bulbs i would like to run 2 pure actinics as well as that seems to really make some colors pop out nice.