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Originally Posted by pumbaafoot  I recently was looking at aquatraders.com and their low prices caught my eye.  Cheap price usually equates to cheap product in my experiences but I would love to be told otherwise in this case. If anyone has any thoughts on the "odyssea" line or aquatraders.com, please chime in. Thanks everyone! |
I ordered and recieved a 20" metal halide and compact flourescent light fixture with leds 2 years ago. If you have ever heard that the true color intensity (ie 10,00K, 14,000k, or 20,000 k) of a bulb truly is contigent upon the quality of it's ballast? I found this to be true with this fixture. The color was not what it was with the same bulb inserted into another more expensive ballast. Other than the trueness of the bulb it looked well and served my purposes very well. After a year and 1/2 the switch to the leds wore out and I could no longer turn them on. Someone who was comfortable with electrical work could fix that easily. I also ordered and recieved a compact flourescent fixture for my planted tank. As of last week, one of the caps that hold the bulb in has a short in it and works erratically. This fixture is now a little over 11 mos old.
In my opinion, the Oddysea product line is great for a short time. During that short time you can save you money for something long lasting, or just buy a whole new fixture from them when the old one wears out. The aquarium light industry is constantly improving upon itself and makes better models all the time, so to buy cheap and then replace is not such a bad idea. Especially when it comes time to buy new bulbs.
Best of luck!