Lighting ?

[booba]

OK I have looked at those mh lights's the two ended kind are they the same as the halogen lights that you can get at hardware store. can you use the halogen bulbs you get with them ... Looks like if you can it would be alot cheeper to go that route..

 

[bobbravo2]

The kind of bulb you buy at the hardware store is a Halogen bulb, yes it has the same form factor (double ended) but it is a totally different lighting technology. The kind of color temperature you will want for your tank is around 6500k - 10,000k (kelvin= visual representation of light color, the lower the k, the more red the light appears, higher = bluer). Halogen bulbs are around 4000-5000k.
So...
The type of double ended bulbs they sell for aquariums are HID (high intensity discharge) that requre a special ballast to drive the bulbs. This, and the fact that they produce a usable color spectrum are the reasons for the price *surcharge*.
I had great difficulty justifying a 130 dollar ballast with 70 dollar bulbs, until I tried growing corals under a Mercury vapor bulb....LoL.