Cheap Ebay T5 Fixture

You replace the ballast and the possibility is out of the equation!

Any light fixture could set your house on fire. Not just these ones. People have never replaced there ballast with no problems.

 

I have a tex light 6 bulb also and have had to replace the ballast because the 2 bulb ballast was humming. Yes if you spend 600 dollars on a fixture you will get individual reflectors and what not. But for the budget reefer I would recommend odyssey fixtures with different ballast any day of the week

 

Once again another odyssea thread turns into a 'they will burn your house down'.

OK, yes back previously they have had models with problems. Has anyone IN PERSON had this happen in the last couple of years? (Not a friend of a friend, whose uncles brothers cousin knew a guy who read a post somewhere.) Cause everybody can post the 2006-2007 posts. How about a 2009-2011? It's apples and oranges.

There are a few now that have issues, and there are just as many people that have had problems with every other brand out there.

This label of oddysea burning down houses is so old and dated. They have came a long way and many people use them without issues.

Yes I agree they are far from the best out there, but they are still good for a person getting into the hobby or on a budget.

 

If you can, test your fixture with a PAR meter and then test an ATI fixture (with same age bulbs... keep it fair) and I bet there will be a big difference. Also test the watts used as well. I believe in cheap reefing (when it needs to be) but I also do not want to be a victim of cutting corners (and getting less). Give me more for less not least for less.
Never said these would burn your house down and haven't even read any posts about this brand until this thread. So far I see at least 1 person here (O.P.)who have had a fire from these fixtures. Go to RC and read the review on them; there are several more people on there that had problems with the ballasts.(2011) Also the reflectors are junk as well as the bulbs so if you add that to crappy ballasts and from what I have read abysmal customer service what are you really getting for the money?

 

Is there a difference in PAR values & quality between those lights & big name brands that are much more expensive? I'm sure there is and for the price difference there better be. lol. If I had the money sure I would buy big sexy fixture, well I'd probably go LED. There are definitely better lights out there, I never have argued that.

I'm only saying that oddyssea lights arent that bad, and 95% of the people that bad mouth them never personally owned one, they are simply regurgitating something the internet told them. Then again we all know everything the internet says is true right?

I dont know why you seem to feel I quoted you. I didnt. There is no finger pointing, name naming or anything close in my post. Run a search on oddyssea and someone always chimes in about them burning houses down & its never first person.

This is like the firestone tires of the late 90's. Every firestone tire for the next 5 years were conveyed as deathtraps. If you go today and buy a firestone tire is it gonna blowout & kill your family still? Probably not, or hopefully at least. Same difference here.

Go to RC? I'll reserve my thoughts on that one and the general mentality there, thats a whole different subject & i'm leaving that alone.

 

I have now owned 4 of these fixtures over the last 4 years and I have never had a single issue with any of them. I use them over my planted FW tanks as well as my SW tanks and in every case the fauna and flora have flourished.

I currently have a 24" fixture over my 20 gallon tank and I have seen new growth on all of the recently added sps (monti/birdsnest/staghorn), as well as new growth on some lps (frogspawn/favia). I also have noticed that when I have my shrooms in the direct light on the bottom of the tank, they shrivel up until I put them in some shade. All of these things suggest to me that this fixture is giving sufficient light to grow a wide range of sps/lps/softies as long as they are placed in the right place in the tank.

This is also on a 20L so the tank is quite shallow. I probably wouldn't use this for a deeper tank but for the shallow tanks they will be able to grow the easy sps corals and lps which is perfect for someone just starting out as well as someone who has a tight budget.

This is just from my own personal experience.

 

Well ya the par will be different individual reflectors. To one reflector. Ya par will be less. I am the first to say this is not a top of the line fixture