Cheap Ebay T5 Fixture

Hi All
I bought a T5 HO fixture from EBAY last week and it arrived on tuesday.
48" 216W T5 HO Aquarium Light Hood Coral Reef w/ Timer | eBay
I liked this fixture since it had fans, pivoting stand, Bulbs included, LED Moonlights, timer etc, plus only $139 with shipping. Unpacked it and all looked pretty cool so far. We installed it and it turned on just fine, but after about an hour there was a strong smell coming from the light. Then one set of the lights went out and would not come on again. So I opened up the fixture, which was pretty easy and found that the ballast for that set had fried inside. Contacted the seller who didnt seem to understand the problem and thought i didnt have the lights plugged in correctly. I'm a General Contractor and have replaced hundreds of ballasts, so this was no big deal. A local electrical supplier had a nice quality ballast in stock and a few minutes later the light was working fine again. I figure for the price I paid I still came out pretty good. The tank looks great now and hopefully I can start adding some corals and make the wife happy with it again.

 

Same light I got. Sorry to see you had problems. I would've kept up on the seller & had them replace it but thats me.

 

Ya I thought about sending it back, but with those cheap ballasts in it, I figure I'm going to update it and make it more reliable with better ones. I dont want any problems when I'm at work.

 

I'm thinking about buying this fixture too on Ebay since the price is good and the 324w Suns fixture wont be available for another 3 months of so. I just hope the ballast doesn't fail on me.

 

All I have to say is...you get what you pay for.

 

I bought the same one and have had good luck so far.

 

Could anyone of you who have this fixture post a front view picture of their tank with all 4 lights on and one just the moonlights? I'm thinking about ordering one soon. Thanks in advance!

 

Please be careful when buying "cheap" T5 lights. I had a horror story where my ballast started smoking before I came home. Came home to most likely a similar smell to yours. I'm glad it didn't cause a fire for you as well.

After all that I switched to a Tek T5. Big difference...Not only was the fixture better made the quality of the reflectors was much much better giving me a stronger light. Not sure about the reflectors on what you guys are talking about but just thought I'd chime in.

Yet another shining example of me trying to get away for less then paying almost 2x as much in the end.

 

Oy...scary thought. I love saving money though.

 

I want this light bad! but i think the seller stopped carrying them