The Beast  

     If you've read our "36-55watt Kits" page (and we won't bore you by repeating it here) you know the importance of superior reflector design and the impact of state-of-the-art reflective material.  Nothing illustrates these points better than the reactions of people when they first look directly at a 96 watt 6700K compact fluorescent installed in an A H Supply Bright Kit™.  The descriptions are varied and often colorful -- from "retina burner" to "migraine maker" to many that are not repeatable -- but there's clearly general agreement that it's a beast.  It's rather like looking at a camera flash, something you don't want to do for long.  Take the bulb out of the reflector, however, and it's not at all hard to look at.  It's still bright, there's no denying, but it is something your eyes can adjust to.

     96 watt compacts allow you to get a lot of light in your hood.  With A H Supply's Bright Kits, they also allow you to get a lot of light out of your hood and into your aquarium.  It's a simple point.  Light that's bouncing around your hood producing heat is of no benefit to anything in your tank.   And you can't count on most of it to finally find its way into the water.  If the light strikes the water surface at more than 55 degrees from vertical, it is simply going to be reflected back up.

     96 watt compacts under broad flat-top reflectors are a great way to get a lot of watts in you hood.  96 watt compacts with A H Supply's multi-angle MIRO 4 reflectors are a great way to get a lot of light in your tank. With a surface reflectivity of over 94%, the MIRO 4 reflector curves around both sides of the bulb to reflect the light downward at a steep angle and allow it to penetrate the water.  The result is over 50% more light in your tank.

     Each one-bulb MIRO 4 reflector is 34.5 inches long by 4 inches wide by 2 inches high. The 96w bulb with the endcap on totals 34.5 inches, so these units are an excellent size for 3 ft. and 6 ft. long tanks.

     The photo above shows a 1 x 96w Bright Kit and a 96w bulb installed in the shell of a 36" twin-tube light strip. (Don't be fooled by the reflector. There's only one bulb in there. And note that the kit is an older, pre-moisture-resistant endcap model.) As you can see, the ballast also fits inside the strip mounted to the back.  That's possible because the 1 x 96 watt Bright Kit utilizes a 14 ounce solid-state electronic ballast that is only 1" high, 1.7" wide and 8.5" long.  It's also easy to hook up.  No need for a grounded reflector.  And no tangle of multiple colored wires to sort out.   Just red and yellow connected to the endcap cord, and black and white to the power supply cord.   Even in large setups, these ballasts can be easily and neatly mounted and connected.  And because they have a very low profile (1"H), it's easy to hide them on the outside back of single-tube strips or of your canopy.  The two-bulb ballast is 18.5"L x 1 5/8"W  x 1"H.