My new lighting system finally came in yesterday and my saltwater reef tank couldn’t be any happier. I had wanted these lights for a while now but I did not take the dive into buying them. When my Pc lights blew a bulb on my wedding day I had to act quick. So here’s a couple of pics of the new Nova Extreme Pro T5’s on my 46gallon tank.
Brand new right out of the box
Comes with three actinic bulbs and three 10k daylight bulbs, two fans, and a individual bulb “molded” reflector to increase intensity.
A side view of my 46gallon tank.
As you can tell, the light takes up a lot of room. So far I’m extremely happy with my purchase, my reef tank has more vibrant colors then before and with the exception of a little algae growth and a failing Crocea clam I received the light in the nick of time. More on the clam on the next blog.
8 responses so far ↓
1 Denise // Jun 26, 2008 at 8:55 am
Reading from June 13th thru your current blog read like a Soap Opera,(lol) hope your clam lives!
2 Otter // Jul 23, 2008 at 11:59 am
Thanks for the recommendation - I purchased one for my 30G and love it. Runs far cooler than my old PCs but so brilliant that it’ll take a few weeks before the tank is back on a 9-hour cycle. Greatly appreciated!
3 admin // Aug 5, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Glad you like it Otter. I have been very impressed with mine so far. My corals are really showing some great color and my anemone is happier then ever.
4 Laura // Sep 6, 2008 at 2:04 pm
I just found your blog and have to say - thanks for making my decision more difficult LOL
I have the aquapod 24 with pc hood. Love the look but want a clam etc. I decided well then I will get the sunpod mh. That is until you posted your review on the t5. I liked also reading about the heat issue (since I currently have the hood up with a fan on my tank) and that mh take a while to go back on (something about the gases in the bulb yada yada)
Can you tell me how your clam is doing? If you are successful then I rather get the t5.
5 admin // Sep 6, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Hi Laura,
Sorry I made your decision more difficult, but I would urge anyone looking into more advanced lighting for there reef aquariums to take a look at both the pro’s and cons of both metal halide lighting and T5 lighting.
About the clam, If you click all the way on the top of the page where the bretts reef header is you will go to my main page and a few blogs down you can see my one crocea clam. My other clam that I mentioned in the above article did not live due to me bieng away on vacation when my pc lights blew out.
I would suggest for a smaller tank as yours that you look into T5 lighting, it would be far easier to control your water temperatures with T5 lighting over metal halide lighting. The diffrence in heat output is extreme.
6 Travis // Oct 29, 2008 at 12:31 pm
hey where are some FTS of your bow front.. since I have the same size tank as you I wanna see how we did things differently!
7 admin // Oct 29, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Hi Travis,
You can find more tank shots of my tank at
http://www.brettsreef.com/index.php/reef-aquarium-pictures/
Some of the pistures are really old. I will be posting an update on the main blog soon with new pictures
8 Chris // Feb 23, 2009 at 8:42 am
Thanks for the review. I’m looking to upgrade from a 260 watt power compact lighting system to the nova extreme pro. I’m hoping I will notice the difference.
Did you add any moonlighting to your tank? I noticed this one didn’t have any moonlights on it, but that’s just a minor set back.