I use a shoplight, but NOT for my primary tank lighting. I have a 4ft
double tube fixture from Home Depot suspended from the ceiling above the
tank. I have this light come on about 30 minutes before my CF lights come
on to provide a sunrise affect and leave it on for about the same amount of
time after the CF lights go out. This works great and provides the fish
with a gradual increase and decrease in light. The light is about 18" above
the tank and provides only enough light to ease the fish out/into darkness.

it also makes a nice room light in my spare bedroom where my tanks are and
is nice at night when working on the computers.

=)

"AC/DCdude17" wrote in message
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I was running many searches on lighting, then saw some reference
about cheap shop lights in aquaria related groups and that was rather
disappointing. Who here uses cheap shop lights for their aquarium
lighting? I'm curious to know how many of you are paying a lot for
specialty lamps only to cheap out on the fixture that doesn't get the
best out of lamps.

Avoid the $9.99 Lights of America shop light. This thing reduces
lamp life dramatically.

Avoid any other cheap shoplights and residential grade fluorescent
fixtures. These fixtures have a cheap, low output ballast that operates
the lamps at 40 to 60% of rated power. 70% if you're lucky. This is
especially true for newer sub$10 shop lights.

You can get a commercial fixture or install a commercial grade ballast
in your pre-existing fixture. It is more expensive, but you will get
about 95% output while giving full lamp life.