Help with an old fixture

[Cwd56]

I am considering an old Marineland fixture over my tank. My tank is 84x24x24 and the fixture I'm looking at is a 72" with 3x150w MH and 8 3' HO T5's. I'm actually looking at it as a DIY T5/LED hybrid down the road. The fixture is programmable and seems to be in working order minus the leds on it. I can get it for $175.

What I want to know, for easier growing corals and beginner friendly type things, will this get me by until I can good leds to go down the center?

Thank you

Cwd56

 

[P-Dub]

WIth MH in there you don't need LED's. So long as the bulbs are not too old you will grow SPS's with that fixture no problem when placed mid to higher in the water column. Likely you will have to replace all the bulbs, again, age dependant, and you would be good to go.

 

[NanoDJS]

This thing is SICKNESS !!! just maintain it and keep the bulbs good and your mint with every coral every , your SPS will be crazy !

 

[TMC1313]

I pretty much did what you're talking about, but with an old Coralife MH fixture. I gutted it and put in led's using the Nanobox V3 array's. I put in a lot of pucks so I have not needed to add T5's up to this point.