whats a good lighting timer??

[fast57]

What would a good lighting timer to get? I have the coralife 36" 96w light with 10000k, actinic and leds. I would like tehm to run in sequence like they should, (actinics on for about an hour, then daylight bulb, back to actinic only for about an hour and then led's fo the night). What brand out there would alow me to do that?

[12g Dude]

I've been using the coralife dual timer for a couple months now with no problems... Best price was Fosters and smith for about $35. The older versions had some issues. I believe they fixed then now.

[fast57]

is that the digital one? I was looking around on ebay and they had a digital one and one with a dial...

[KMP]

You have three choices:

1) 3 separate timers [analog or digital]. here's a good sale on digitals:

http://www.hellolights.com/tmditi.html


2) Coralife digital and a separate timer:

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...=1&N=0&Nt y=1


3) Coralife dual analog timer. These have not recieved good reviews, however, they have supposedly been redesigned and 12g Dude has been successful with his:

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...=1&N=0&Nt y=1


One thing to note with the Coralife timer/power strips; the plugs are close together which may not allow you to plug in three separate lights if one of the plus has the transformer end.

[Kensn]

this might fit your needs.... no personal experience with it though...

http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewIt...roduct=ES01690

[BoomerD]

I've had very good luck with these:
http://intermatic.com/?action=prod&pid=215
You can even get them rated up to 15 amps, but that's overkill IMO. They run $10-$20 at places like Home Depot or Lowes...The long cord keeps your outlets free, instead of one timer taking the room of 2 or 3 outlets like many do...

[Cougra]

Personally I don't like the digital timers. I've tried three different types and found that the backup battery always seemed to fail during a power outage. I can't tell how many times the lights didn't come on after the power failure until I reset the units.

I like the simple analog timers. I know they aren't as "accurate" as the digital ones, but the lights ALWAYS turned back on when the power comes on and they always continued working (even if the time frame was shifted a little) without having to worry about adding batteries or resetting the timers.

The ones that Boomer linked to are good. They are the only types of timers I get now instead of wasting my money on the digital ones.

[KeyserSoze]

I have a 2X96w PC light and I just went to Wal-Mart and picked up 2 timers. They've been working for 2 years flawlessly. $5 a piece.

[Witfull]

i love digital timers, and my K-mart bought ones always keep their time when unplugged or power outage.

the dial ones are so in accurate and constantly change their on/off cycle its impossible to co-ordinate with moonlights.

[fast57]

the dial ones are so in accurate and constantly change their on/off cycle its impossible to co-ordinate with moonlights.

^^
Thats sorta why I was wondering about the digital one. I've had experience's with the dial one and they do seem to shift there timing. Anyone got the coralife digital? Will it do what I need it to do with the moonlights and all?

[KMP]

I have the Coralife digital. It will not run a series of three lights.

The timer basically controls the two yellow plugs and they work together, not independantly. When the yellow are on - the blue are off. I have the days plugged into the yellow, the moons plugged into the blue and run a separate timer for the actinics.

[BoomerD]

I've used ones like the one I linked to for years and never had one shift it's timing. They use pegs that you put in where you want them, nearly impossible for them to change on their own...digital is more accurate, (but need a battery back-up to be useful IMO) but even after a power outage, an analog timer will still turn the lights on/off at what it thinks is the scheduled time (even though it may not be the RIGHT time due to differences in the clock)..

[fidojoe]

I agree with BoomerD on this one. I use those exact timers, and have been for about 2 years. The only time that they have shifted on their own so that the timing was off was when we lost power for about 15 minutes, but all 3 of them stayed in sequence with eachother still.

The only thing I will use digital timers for is the mixing pump on my kalk reactor, because I need it down to 2 minute incraments.

I have had problems with digital timers shorting from getting wet (nerite snails like to crawl out), knocking an open faced analog out of time, and lower amperage cheap timers sticking in the "on" position with the 250w MH that I used to have. The timers that BoomerD linked to fixed all those problems for me.