04 Acura TL hid's on a 65 gallon

[bigpuffer]

Yea that's right!! 04 TL headlights!! I figured i would try it and see what it would look like. I am setting my 65 back up as a bare bottom "no sand" FOWLR untill my inwall is closer in the makeing. I was unsure what it would look like but to tell the truth i like it. I am running 2 12k 55 watt 12 volt dc hid bulbs in homemade spider reflectors. i am mixing the hid's with 2x39watt t-5ho actinic's "standard 110 volt" the light is amazing. i have as much shimmer as i had with 2 150 watt hqi's and useing next to no power. The cost of this project was 2 used ballast and bulb sockets from 04 tL from junk yard 40.00 2new 12k bulbs from ebay 20.00 and a high end power supply from craigslist for 100.00 for a grand total of 160.00. the reflectors i made out of an old spider reflector i had hanging around.

pic 1 is the hand cut spider reflector. "20.00" is for size reference
pic 2 is the actual TL bulb socket
pic 3 is hard to capture shimmer in a still shot but you get the idea
pic 4 is the light shineing through 2' of water and still lighting up sump nice
pic 5 i am attempting to show how bright tank is.

 

[DoctaQ]

wow neato, i love it when people look outside of the norm for lighting.
i thought i read somewhere that these bulbs dont last as long as regular mh, how much are you getting bulbs for?

 

[Turbosnail]

Cool I wanted to try this a long time ago but never got around to it.

 

[bigpuffer]

i don't think cost of bulbs will be a factor cause i can buy 3 pairs of hid bulbs for the cost of 1 low end mh bulb. i got the pair of bulbs on a ebay store for 20.00 + 4.00 shipping

 

[Jennifer]

Love it ,
Way to think outside the box, or above it as it were.

I would love to see some Par readings on this.

Sign up for the clubs meter and post up some numbers when you have the chance.

Not sure how this stacks up to a Metal halide system but the color and light levels look good from here.
Bravo
Cheers - Jenn

 

[Brad S]

You should screen that with some UV glass as those put out a fair amount... When you retro fit those lights to a car with a stock plastic headlight and not a glass screened headlight the plastic becomes yellowed and ruined inside of a few months.

 

[Liam]

looks good,i would definitely get some kind of uv glass shield,as well as the uv issue there is the issue of the bulbs popping.
The glass used to make those bulbs is very thin,if a slight drop of water hit the bulb it would possibly burst releasing the toxic contents into your tank.

 

[Bo_]

Did it raise the temp of your tank any? because from my experience HID's get pretty darn hot

also +1 on the UV glass heat shield

 

[STiTCH87]

That's so funny because I thought that to myself when I first got my Coralife 130W. I got into my Integra that night and turned on my headlights which are 6K HID and I looked at the white-ish blue light that came out of it and thought "this is the same lighting colours as my fish tank..." Contemplated buying HIDs for my tank, but had no idea how to run them on anything but a car battery. They produce virtually no heat and use virtually no energy. Have we possibly found the NEXT NEXT lighting trend of tanks? After LEDs? Lol.

Your fish tank is JDM...

 

[Brad S]

That's so funny because I thought that to myself when I first got my Coralife 130W. I got into my Integra that night and turned on my headlights which are 6K HID and I looked at the white-ish blue light that came out of it and thought "this is the same lighting colours as my fish tank..." Contemplated buying HIDs for my tank, but had no idea how to run them on anything but a car battery. They produce virtually no heat and use virtually no energy. Have we possibly found the NEXT NEXT lighting trend of tanks? After LEDs? Lol.

Your fish tank is JDM...

They produce a lot of heat, and require a decent amount of power to run as well.

 

[bigpuffer]

They produce a lot of heat, and require a decent amount of power to run as well.

i did state i had a high end supply it cost 500 new but like i said i bought it on CL for 100.00. this power supply is way over kill. the hid ballast do all the hard work really. the power supply i have has a fan that wont even turn on cause it only gets luke warm after a 9 hr run. if anyone in or near fall river has a kill-a-watt i would love to test actual draw. i know it will be min. compared to mag. and electronic ballast.

as for the heat does not compare to my previous hqi set up. cause of the small bulb and reflector

on the uv/glass i have never run a mh mog/hqi fixture with any type of glass
but i did not concider bulb snot leakin in the tank i am going to order a piece of glass there already is a cleat inside the canopy to rest on.

 

[cujo6984]

even if everything together is losing 50%efficency you should be at 200watts max im gonna guess closer to 140 watts + the t5 so a total of 220 watts the bulbs are only 55 watts each

i would like to see what kind of par #'s you get

 

[bigpuffer]

the actual supply i have

 

[bigpuffer]

yea agreed need a par meter and a kill-a-watt i dont see a dramitic change in light with the t-5's on just a more desireable color

 

[Brad S]

the actual supply i have

Where did you end up putting the ballast? Def post pics when you have critters in the tank

 

[paulthomas]

IIRC, mogul bulbs are UV shielded (tempered glass), while DE bulbs typically are not. Both are HQI. I don't know if HID bulbs are shielded, but better safe than sorry.

The color of those HIDs looks pretty sweet BTW. Nice retro job.

 

[ReefGrlGLH]

Nice..... The bf was thinking about that too....
But i went to Autozone and got some blue light for my moon lights at night

 

[bigpuffer]

IIRC, mogul bulbs are UV shielded (tempered glass), while DE bulbs typically are not. Both are HQI. I don't know if HID bulbs are shielded, but better safe than sorry.

The color of those HIDs looks pretty sweet BTW. Nice retro job.

i did not know the mogul bulbs were shielded. so i guess my previous statement is false then. lol i did order a piece of uv tempered glass anyway i should get it in this thursday.