Another option

[charlesr1958]

With the vast array of lighting systems available, all of which are unavailable to me, the one downside of living on a tropical island, I HAD to come up with a way to light a reef tank, there was no way I was going to live within five minutes of philippine reefs and not have a reef tank, soooo, I rigged up a bank of 6500k regular household compact flourescents for a total cost of about twenty dollars, for those wishing to save some money, I think its worth a look at. And no, they are not comparable to metal halide, and the only downside to my "frankenlights" is that the brightly colored acro types will slowly turn brown and lose their bright pinks / blues. I can live with that. Well, just wanted to toss it out there as another alternative....

My Frankenlights (http://home2.pacific.net.ph/~sweetyummy42/lights.html)

<center>http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/66462tank2.jpg </center>