oddysea MH T5 combo

[Neptune420]

I was thinking of purchasing an oddysea MH/t5 combo on ebay. It comes with 2 15LEDmoonlights,2 39w actinics and 1 150w 15k MH. All for $200+sh. Does anyone have any experience with Oddysea? Are they worth it or should I just pay $70 more for the Hellolights retro?

[sherm71tank]

Which one are asking about? Here's a non ebay link.
http://www.aquatraders.com/index.asp...ATS&Category=9

[thebradybunch]

I am just getting into this hobby and didn't have a lot of money so I purchased a Odysea 48" 260w Compact flouresant fixture on Ebay brand new for $85.00 plus shipping. I have been using them now for 1 month and I am pretty happy with them. They only have 1 reflector but give put good light and seem to be built fine. My plans are to use this fixture until the lamps need replacing and then upgrading to a MH retrofit. I have seen some bad reviews on the Odysea MH fixtures but they were reviewing the 2007 models. It appears the new 2008 models may be built better. Good luck and keep us informed if you buy them and your thoughts when you get them.

[NealNano]

You get what you pay for. Oddysea is know for fire proubles at the worst. At best cheap fans, bulbs, ballasts and reflectors. Coral life makes very good and inexpensive lights.

[sherm71tank]

I have an Odyssea MH combo unit, 48" 2x250watt hqi and 4x65 watt pc that looks AMAZINGLY similar (read identical) to the coralife unit. It came with electronic ballasts that worked fine for e ballasts but I replaced them with a pfo hqi ballast. The fan that came inside it, pc ballast and moonlights are still working great. I've had it for better than a year now.

[nietzsche]

Originally posted by NealNano
You get what you pay for. Oddysea is know for fire proubles at the worst. At best cheap fans, bulbs, ballasts and reflectors. Coral life makes very good and inexpensive lights.

theres a HUGE thread with lots of people who have already bought these fixtures and have been using the new ones for a long time without problems. ive had mine for a few months now and love it. the only thing i did was replace the original electronic ballast to an Icecap ballast since the odysea one was underpowered and replaced the bulb...

[Neptune420]

THanks for the input. I think I'm just going to go with hellolights. After replacing the ballast and bulb it would be about the same price.