AB Aquaspace Lighting Fixture

This is the AB Aquaspace Lighting System. As shown to the left it is over my 180 Gallon Tank about 10 inches above the water surface.

This unit is just under 6 feet long at 71 inches. It has three 250w double ended HQI lights and four 24w Blue Power Compacts. The unit is pretty heavy at about 75 pounds. It is suspended from the ceiling by two cables which distributes the weight. Each cable needs to support less than 40 lbs. Thus you need to find something pretty solid in the ceiling to mount the unit to. The weight comes from all the ballasts tucked inside the unit. The only wires you need to deal with are two power cords -- one for the halides and one for the power compacts.

The tank really is bright and has excellent coverage. I had to tone down the picture a little inorder to reduce the glare from the light.

AB Aquaspace Lighting Fixture

This is the AB Aquaspace light fixture being reused in the tank room for my 180 Gallon In-Wall display. 

AB Aquaspace's burnt out ballast

After two years in storage the unit would no longer ignite all the bulbs. After close inspection I located a ballast with the wiring terminal completely destroyed. Apparently there was a lose connection which caused electricity to arc across the gap.

The AB Aquaspace unit was out of warranty, however Aquamedic provided a replacement ballast at reasonable cost.

In addition to this ballast a set of the double-ended sockets needed to be replaced as well.

AB Aquaspace Lighting Fixture

Unit with all the bulbs ignited. This picture was taken right after the unit was hung. Until the impact of the lighting was known on tank and room temperature I left the unit higher than normal. This picture shows the fixture approximately 12 inches from the water surface. I expect to lower the unit closer to 10 inches from the water surface during normal operations.

As pictured the unit has three 250w XM 20,000K DE bulbs and four 28w Actinic Power Compact bulbs.