Hi all. I'm looking for a reasonable/good quality T5 90 cm 4 tube light unit. Seen any like this in NZ (pref Auckland) or available on the web ? Here's one on Trade me - had any experience with this one.. http://www.trademe.co.nz/Pets-animals/Fish/Lights-lamps/auction-388947113.htm I've hunted around for any reviews/comments on the web about this Odyssea model and all I can find is some negative feedback about the Odyssea tubes being way off spectrum and not great quality... - who knows, haven't been able to find any specs on them so far. Cheers

Hi and welcome.

HFF and Animates will have the GLO light hoods; and as far as T5 HO lights go there isn't much better than that (over here any how).

I have two GLO light hoods, and the only thing that concerns me about them is the lights are placed very close together. This doesn't really give a good spread of light in my opinion.

As P44 said, buying a quality brand from a reputable store when purchasing something expensive and potentially prone to failure as a light hood is worth considering rather than just going for the cheapest possible option. You'll get better after sales support if something does go wrong with it, and you'll also have somewhere to buy your fish and plants from in the future.

ps. please put your location in your profile so we can see where you're from.

Hey absolutely. Pay peanuts - get monkeys, has always been my belief whether that's employing someone or buying something. Nothing irritates me more than cheap crap that's poorly designed and doesn't really do what it's there to do! Worse still is form at the expense of function - designed to look so good, that as a result, doesn't work so well. What I'm looking for is decent quality at a reasonable price - value for money that works well. What we're all after I guess... Funny that!

I've been around the local aquarium supplies, they just don't sell and can't get the lights I'm after - 4 tubes (too small a market I guess) so I'm left with either buying 2 lights (a very expensive option) or looking on the web. I'll let you know how I get on. Thanks for your input guys. I'll write a review of the lights I buy - hopefully a positive one. ;-)

If you're not afraid of a bit of DIY you could go for two of these and mount the tubes evenly across the top of the tank inside a hood; http://www.hollywoodfishfarm.co.nz/detail/view/hagen-t5-ho-54w-ballast/m/931/

Would need to buy some reflectors for them as well, but they're not terribly expensive.

Thanks David. Not a bad idea and and an option I've looked at. I'm pretty handy but I think it would work out quite expensive - $120 x 2 for the ballasts (4 tubes) + say $50 x 4 for tubes + $? x 4 for reflectors. It would be a great system but you probably wouldn't finish it under $550 - $600 and that's not including a housing or canopy of some sort to mount the assembly in. Bit beyond my budget unfortunately.