why are aquarium lights so expensive!!

I was going to make a DIY light but once I added the costs for the bulbs I decided that buying the pre-made 24" light was cheaper and looked better.

I can't find 24" PC bulbs at lowes or home depo
 
Hi all, I live in the uk and after serching around i've just spent £150 on a light fitting from arcadia for my 125g tank.:mad2: The up side of this is it looks very good on the tank and i got it for £25 cheaper than my LFS.:)
 
Why are lighting kits more expensive? I would gather that it is similar to any other "specialty market" item. I am a land surveyor and I use a sledge hammer almost daily. The one I use cost about $20 at Home Depot. Now, at our office, we get survey supply catalogs almost daily. A similar hammer (different manufacturer is all) is priced about 1.5 to 2 times that of HD. Why? Because it says "Surveyors" sledge hammer in the catalog.
 
One difference we have here is that 48" Aquarium lights have 40watt ballasts whereas home depot stores have 38watt ballasts.

I tried putting a 40watt tube into a 38watt ballasts. It doesn't work.

Most of our 48" light tubes are 40watts and it's hard to find 36 or 38 watt aquarium tubes (especially for plants)

Plus home insurance says that we need electricians to fix any lights in our house otherwise if there's a fire then we're not covered.
 
Ulan said:
Everything made for a specialized audience is quite expensive. The producer just can't sell the numbers necessary to be able to sell the stuff for cheap.
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LOL, that makes it sound like producers are in business for altruistic reasons, and striving to sell things as cheaply as possible.

It's more like: the producers know that the specialized audience is willing to pay alot more than those shopping for commodity goods. Why price things less if your customer is willing to pay through the nose?

At the local Petco/Petsmart, the only difference between a $4.99 dog chew toy, and a $29.99 parrot chew toy, is a 50 cent chain and clasp, and willingless of exotic pet owners to pay more. ;)
 
PDX-PLT said:
LOL, that makes it sound like producers are in business for altruistic reasons, and striving to sell things as cheaply as possible.

It's more like: the producers know that the specialized audience is willing to pay alot more than those shopping for commodity goods. Why price things less if your customer is willing to pay through the nose?

At the local Petco/Petsmart, the only difference between a $4.99 dog chew toy, and a $29.99 parrot chew toy, is a 50 cent chain and clasp, and willingless of exotic pet owners to pay more. ;)
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You charge what the market will bear.
 
I was going to retrofit an existing light strip with an AHSupply kit but after adding the cost of the kit plus the bulb it added up to about the same price as a new 96W Satellite fixture. That doesn't answer your question though... I think it's the availability of the components that drive the price.
 
Convience and custom look.

I use the standard 48" flourescence fixture 40 watt (got at the True Value in town) and use plant growing bulbs that i got at Agway for $8 each. Spray painted the top black - wholla.
 
lazyNode said:
One difference we have here is that 48" Aquarium lights have 40watt ballasts whereas home depot stores have 38watt ballasts.

I tried putting a 40watt tube into a 38watt ballasts. It doesn't work.

Most of our 48" light tubes are 40watts and it's hard to find 36 or 38 watt aquarium tubes (especially for plants)

Plus home insurance says that we need electricians to fix any lights in our house otherwise if there's a fire then we're not covered.
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T12 lights (common for shoplights) are 40W and T8 lights are 32W. Never had a problem running either light in either ballast. There may be a few out there that dont work but I have tried many without problem. I use 40W T6 lights also on 32W T8 ballasts. And the 32W bulbs usually put out as much light as their 40W counterparts. For shoplight-like setups, the 2 for $7 Philips Daylight Deluxe T8 bulb at HD is a good deal, 6700K and seems to be growing plants good for me.
 
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