aaron1987 Posted December 15, 2008 Share Posted December 15, 2008 Was looking for a solution for my 30" deep tank's lighting and came across this. Anyone have any experience with this vendor? It's an incredible price... they appear like they might be Catalina Aquarium's fixtures but I'm not sure. Thoughts? Link to comment
IMaNoob Posted December 15, 2008 Share Posted December 15, 2008 kind of suprised it has individual reflecors...looks alittle too crammed to have.... Link to comment
aaron1987 Posted December 15, 2008 Author Share Posted December 15, 2008 I shot the vendor a slew of questions, we'll see how they respond. I was also eyeing their 8x24w retro; I'm suspicious the dimensions on the 8x24w fixture are posted wrong... listed as 9" wide - same as their 6x24w. If I had to guess, I'd say it's more in line with width of the retro at 13" wide. Link to comment
rean_jem Posted December 15, 2008 Share Posted December 15, 2008 looks good to me. i guess my only concern would be the ballast, and how efficient it would perform. Link to comment
aaron1987 Posted December 15, 2008 Author Share Posted December 15, 2008 I'm also concerned about the ballast, it does look like a carbon copy of Catalina's stuff who I believe have a decent reputation, though. Link to comment
aaron1987 Posted December 15, 2008 Author Share Posted December 15, 2008 Figured I'd throw up a reply that I got from RC regarding the fixtures in case anyone's interested. I just bought one of their fixtures a few weeks ago. Pretty good quality from what I can tell, but I will say this about them: 1. Communication is not the strong suit of the company. They told me my fixture was shipped on one day via USPS and then it showed up FedEx 8 days later. They did give me 3 extra bulbs for the hassle though. 2. Speaking of bulbs, I'm no expert, but these don't appear to be of very good quality. I fired the light and immediately could see that two of my 4 10K bulbs were clearly not as bright as the others. I ended up having to trade them out anyway (see below). 3. The fixture is made well, with good materials. Hell, I dropped the business end of mine INTO the water and all it did was blow a couple of the crappy bulbs! I will say that the reflectors are NOT individual. They are about as close as you can get though, with one piece of metal contoured into troughs. I can't see how separate reflectors would do any better than these. 4. Lastly, it's a bit of a pain to change the bulbs. They are not the twist in kind, but feature plugs that are a bit tight at first. You're looking at a retro kit, so it's obviously different, but they don't leave a lot of room to slide out the bulb and get to the plug. If one was going to do a multi-bulb change or do lots of rearranging, it's easier to take one of the endcaps off. I paid $229 for a 6X54W with lunars, and I feel like I got my money's worth and then some. I'm curious if anyone has any insight into the effectiveness of troughs vs true individual reflector effectiveness? Link to comment
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