Good First Freshwater Aquarium?

Would you stick with the same bulb in the ebay T5 HO or go with a different replacement right away?

They're fine to start, wouldn't bother with new bulbs right off. 2x24w T5 HO is really more light than you need on a 29/30G, but not too much, so if the bulbs are a little lower output than typical (not that they seem to be from what I've seen) it won't hurt anything.

The Odyssea fixtures seem to be getting better with time -- apparently they once used mylar based reflectors which most felt was just "middle of the road" but the ones I got more recently are using a polished reflector (don't know if it's aluminum, steel, or what) and light output is very good. I'd rather they were individually contoured (not as big a deal on the 2 bulb variant) but it does the job well regardless.

Sadly I do not have a PAR meter so I can't give an objective number here, but I've been very happy with them for the money. After buying several I look at things like the Coralife and other even higher end brand fixtures and wonder where they get off charging 3x+ the price for what seems almost the same product. A 4x24w 24" fixture like the one I just picked up last week for $75 shipped would be $300 + shipping from Coralife... and the featureset and, from what I can tell, reflector design, is almost exactly the same.

It may be worth noting that there's no active cooling on the Odyssea lights (at least not any I have purchased) but they don't seem to need it. They get warm, but not hot enough to be unpleasant to touch even after hours of use, and the ballasts are external (unlike the Coralife lights and many others, where the ballast is housed in the hood) so they are not nearly as heat sensitive over all.

I also own two Odyssea CFS 500 canister filters, but I do not recommend these to most because their design is not the best. They require some modification to distribute pressure from the nuts around the circumference of the canister top / seal to avoid the plastic cracking over time (I'm using large washers and rubber spacers until I can use a jigsaw to cut a "donut" of plywood) and some of the o-rings are too large out of the box, requiring replacement to avoid damage to the quick disconnects for the hoses over time (an admittedly easy fix, $2-3 at a local hardware store). The main thing is the modification of the filter media to turn it in to a circumferential design instead of purely "top to bottom" as it comes out of the box. I do not take credit for any of this and the mods are originally (so far as I know) by CWO4GUNNER, also a member of these forums. All in all the "real" cost of one of these filters is about $70 after purchase and a trip to Lowe / Home Depot / Ace, but the 2-3 hours messing with it is more than most want to deal with, so for tanks under 90 gallons a Sunsun / Perfect / Jebo canister is probably the way to go if you decide on the off-brand eBay canister filter route.

Also, even if you have a really, really big tank and are willing to do the work to get it going properly, a CFS 700 is not a good buy -- it is suspected they use the same pump and just add a woefully underpowered UV light and a bigger media container, along with silly "feet" which make an already large filter even taller and harder to place / fit under a cabinet. I don't recommend anyone buy a CFS 700 for any reason.
 
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Def go with a bigger tank, you'll be sorry you didn't if you love this hobby the way most of us do. Filtration should be the best you can afford, I use Rena's, but they are pricey. I have two 10g's with AC's on them, water quality is good, they last forever.

I'm one of those that would stay away from the Odyssea fixture, having lived thru the era of the fires. I have heard they changed the ballasts on the fixtures and I haven't heard of any recent complaints, only praises.

I use catalinaaquarium.com fixtures, I have a T5HO 2x24W on a 26g bow and a T5HO 2X39W on a 29g standard, both are planted tanks. I had them put each bulb on it's own switch/cord. The 26g bow has one light come on for 4hours, then it goes off and the 2nd light goes on for 4 hours. This gets the light to all areas of the tank (bowfront). It's not too much light, but remember I only have 39W of light on this tank at a time and the tank is planted with dwarf sag only (endler breeding tank).

The 29g has one light on for 8 hours, the second light comes on for 3 hours a day for a mid day burst. Both tanks were set up for over a year w/soil substrate capped w/3M color quartz, dose PPS and Excel daily. No algae in over a year.

The 29g has gone from a fully planted tank to a Q tank, kept the plants, to just last week a cichlid tank with sand substrate and plants. I didn't have to change lighting because each bulb is on a separate switch. The point I'm trying to make here is lighting options, having the ability to order a fixture with multiple bulbs on different cords, gives you lighting options to change the tank's stocking with out having to change the lighting.
 
FWIW, I built my own hood for my 30g tall and used a 55w kit from www.ahsupply.com as my lighting. Seems to be working fine, I have a mix of low-light plants with a couple medium types and everyone seems happy so far.
 
here is a quick tip: the fewer fish you have in your tank the easier it is to keep them alive (generally, this doesnt include aggresive fish which will easily single out one fish in a lightly populated tank)
 
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