Best Light for Pico Reefs ( CurrentUSA and Coralife no longer make high output 11s )

[BiGPiNK]

CurrentUSA and Coralife both used to make a 36 watt eleven incher, however, for some bizarre reason, both have discontinued production of these little beauts. both lights, when in production, were less than sixty bucks, to get the equivalent in either halides or LEDs would cost probably at least double (considering halides don't even get started below the 150 mark), is there ANYTHING on the market that doesn't involve me having to solder anything, that i can pretty much buy off the shelf that will have a similar output?
i wish id gotten into this whole reef thing just six months earlier, there might have been at least a couple left on the shelves back then!

[Wom001]

Anything on this I'm trying to figure out a way to supp my 29 gallon cube somehow that doesn't involve me droppin 3 bills on an led system

[Sea-agg09]

So basically what I am hearing is you want alot of output for under $100?...

Par38 is the way to go. I'm getting this (from LED wholesalers) light for $65 dollars, which is really nice, and can grow anything you want in something up too... a 29 biocube, but that would be really pushing it. I'm getting a $15 dollar light from walmart that has slots at the base for pencils and such, which I can use for food, nets, and those sorts of things, and it's good to go.

As far as your 29, I might run 2. It will cost you 130, but you will definitely have enough light for anything, and you can tune the color in to just what you want. I'm assuming you are doing saltwater in your biocube, at which point the question is what are you keeeping? If you are just keeping zoas, shrooms, and other softies, then 1 would be good. If you wanted to keep some nice LPS, then 2 Par38's would be the way to go.

[BiGPiNK]

Yup, the par38's where pretty much the only option now for smaller tanks on a budget, for what its worth though, I've learned an awful lot since i posted that question and what I've come to realize is REEF KEEPING IS *CARPING* EXPENSIVE! there are DIY tutorials and all of that available, but at the end of the day, if you want something good, lay down the dollars up front! i know it doesn't really help, and it goes against what i set the thread up for, but we live and we learn!
you can spend 50 bucks on a cheap fixture, but then you NEED to replace those *carpy* bulbs that come with them, once you've laid out for a set of nice bulbs to put in your cheap fixture (with *carpy* reflectors and ballasts) you've pretty much spent what you would have spent buying a new current or nova.

In the end, their are two ways of going about it...

first if aesthetics isn't high on your lists, buy something BIGGER, sounds weird but wait...the discounts on fixtures gets better the longer the fixture for some reason. that's why you spend 50 bucks on a 11" mini aqualight, but only 30 on a 24" aqualight...plus, the bigger fixture future-proofs you to some extent. Keep an eye out on craigslist, in the market and there are other websites in houston that perform similar duties that can be as good a source as any...I've seen 20" 4 bulb nova extremes go for 75 bucks with 4 new very nice bulbs...sometimes patience is a virtue!

your second option as sea-agg said, is the par38 etc...personally, i'm not sold on them, alot of them seem to be very cheaply made and have heat issues that LEDS should never have in the first place (i've read too many stories of people buying the par38 type bulbs, running them for a day or two and the heat being so bad it burned all the diodes in the unit) plus they're really not as 'customizable" as other options...you basically have a choice of how many blues/whites you want....with diy LED, you at least have the whole spectrum to play with, and your color options for t5ho are still (in my opinion) miles ahead of the LEDS.

anyway, hope it helps a bit, i know you're probably hating me right now, i know when i started asking questions and basically everybody told me to go and drop large bills it properly bugged me, i wasn't asking for expensive options, but thats all everyone gave me, but after you spend your time (and a lot of wasted money on useless fixtures) there really is only one conclusion to be drawn.....

[Mzungu]

There's always Ecoxotic stunner strips, if you haven't tried those? They're 12 inches, so might not work on the 11 inches you have, and I'm not sure what the dimensions of the 29g cube are, but they're great lights, IMO. And they're engineered with spectrums that are said to foster great growth in reefs.

http://www.ecoxotic.com/stunner-led-strips.html

[Wom001]

ha well i kinda threw out the whole go cheap route when i was looking up par readings and so now im going with a diy led system i found sniffing around other forums that has great instruction and cataloging plus the par readings for these type systems is supposed to rival halides soooo basically goodbye 100$ limit hello 300+ =P

[BiGPiNK]

exactly wom, in the end though, i think we all learn it's better in this hobby to buy the best you can as soon as you can, this hobby more than any other hobby breeds jealousy - you only need to glimpse a certain set up through a window, or catch site of the latest and greatest gadgets at the LFS and in minutes you'll have convinced yourself that despite years of evidence to the contrary, ALL of your creatures WILL die IMMEDIATELY if you don't go home with it right then and there!
Having said that, you won't regret the cost of the LEDs, first theres your energy savings, then there's your bulb savings (especially if you're like me and are convinced all of your bulbs have 'color-shifted' within 4 months - i think i spend most of my money out of sheer paranoia!) then there's the extra benefits of being waay more controllable.
Good decision Wom, you definitely won't regret it.

[Crude]

There's always Ecoxotic stunner strips, if you haven't tried those? They're 12 inches, so might not work on the 11 inches you have, and I'm not sure what the dimensions of the 29g cube are, but they're great lights, IMO. And they're engineered with spectrums that are said to foster great growth in reefs.

http://www.ecoxotic.com/stunner-led-strips.html

Ive never kept a reef tank, but judging from the amount of light the 48" stunner puts out on my tank, I think its safe to say you'll need more than one strip. Even with the 48" 8000k + 24" 445nm blue combo I have, its not a lot of light.

[Wom001]

Yea I looked at the par levels at like 18 inch 50s at 12" 60s water level was 90s so yea not a real gre way to go only if you wanted to just supplement those crappy tubes :/

[Totenkampf]

CurrentUSA and Coralife both used to make a 36 watt eleven incher, however, for some bizarre reason, both have discontinued production of these little beauts!

I was thinking of standardizing on the aquaticlife 18" T5HO fixtures for shrimp tanks that I have planned, I hope they at least keep these 18" lamps in production because the 24" is too long for the aquarium i am using!