Really, humm that makes sense. But when I asked to do the t5no ballasts, they said its fine but they did not carry the bulbs for the NO. So thats why I assumed you needed different bulbs.Their ballasts supposedly can be used with NO or HO bulbs.
Last I heard they are using electronic ballasts that will adjust between HO and NO.Really, humm that makes sense. But when I asked to do the t5no ballasts, they said its fine but they did not carry the bulbs for the NO. So thats why I assumed you needed different bulbs.
Maybe Ill call in a few days and ask them again.
But if you think about it, if the ballast is setup as a t5ho, you HAVE to use t5ho bulbs right?
Well I have alot of respect for Catalina. I call up the manufacture and describe the light I have in mind (dual ballast, wide reflectors, hanging brackets, stainless body, ect). The point is with Catalina they hand make your lights to your specifications. I work at a local LFS and grow plants with Catalina lighs:im not tryin to dis catalina but i bought a retro fit kit from reefgeeks and my dad had a catalina fixture and he ended up switching to the same retrofit i bought because he said the reflectors werent as good as the ones from that particular brand that i had bought
here is the same kit i bought
http://www.reefgeek.com/60-2x80w-miro-4-t5-high-output-retrofit-kit.html
I did notice that as well. Will it still outpower a fishneedit 2 bulb? That was the other option I was looking at, though I think it may be a little under powered.Notice that the 1 bulb Catalina line on that chart is calculated, not based on actual measurement. I suspect you will get less PAR than that since the pictures of that light show it being a pretty primitive reflector compared to their multiple bulb lights.
The material used for the reflectors is very likely to be the same, but their photos of their lights don't show them to have the same shape, and the shape is much more important than the material. Of course, what you see in a photo is never as definitive as what you see first hand, so they may be correct.I contacted them and they assured me the single bulb reflector and the multi bulb reflectors are of the same quality. This is good news, because I think the single bulb 30" will be perfect for what I want!
