Lighting Myths, Facts and Assistance

[rickztahone]

Is that a Tropica 049 carpet?

[Neptune]

Is that a Tropica 049 carpet?

I just bought a bag of the Top Fin cultured Staurogyne repens from PetSmart and trimmed and replanted the tops.
I might go back to it....parva is taking FOREVER to grow!

[Jack L]

I grew swords and several Anubis's. Water depth was typical 75gal as I said in my post. Mine was 48" current + model and I could control all the RBG LED's the white LED's have full or 1/2 brightness. I know nothing about the pro version. It's pretty versatile for the 90.00 I spent much better than a dual bulb T8 8000k sky white. Plants were in short clay pots with flourite plants grew to the top out of the water practically. I ran everything full on.

thanks for info. i agree, its pretty good for 90. i went with the pro because i had more water to penetrate. but i've been running it 1/2 power to help with algea. i probably could have saved a bunch and got the one you did.

the pro lets you control RBG and W each in 100 steps. 0 off, 100 full.
lets you save a couple custom color mixes, has built in ramp on/ramp off timer.

the built in control is really hard to use, the remote works much better, but it has to be a few inches from sensor for it to work. but since the hard wired control is SO unnituitive and sensitive to touch/hard to control, i only use the remote.

[Neptune]

My Ecoxotic is like that as well. The programming took some figuring out and you have to point the remote right at it from about a foot away.
I also had a bad controller right out of the box and drove me nuts trying to get it to work eventually had to send it back. Customer service was good.

Two other things that bug the crap out of me:
1. The legs, Some are bent metal and some are plastic little legs that slide in and out. All of them feel like an after thought.
2. The way they are measured. A 36-48" light fixture only has LED's the 36" length. The legs extend to 48" but you don't have Leds, for the last 6" on each side.

OK, one more...just about every one has 120 degree optics.

[Jack L]

My Ecoxotic is like that as well. The programming took some figuring out and you have to point the remote right at it from about a foot away.
I also had a bad controller right out of the box and drove me nuts trying to get it to work eventually had to send it back. Customer service was good.

Two other things that bug the crap out of me:
1. The legs, Some are bent metal and some are plastic little legs that slide in and out. All of them feel like an after thought.
2. The way they are measured. A 36-48" light fixture only has LED's the 36" length. The legs extend to 48" but you don't have Leds, for the last 6" on each side.

OK, one more...just about every one has 120 degree optics.

how could you tell the hard wire control was bad?

mine has flimpsy metal pull out legs. they work...BARELY

[Neptune]

how could you tell the hard wire control was bad?

mine has flimpsy metal pull out legs. they work...BARELY

It would enter the programming mode, and say I was adjusting brightness, it would start to adjust then freeze and time out and never accept a new setting.