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Heater Deal at Kensfish...

dogofwar

CCA Members
Kensfish has Hagen Elite Submersible Glass Heaters on sale right now.

I've had as good of luck with these as any of the other brands and the price he's offering is great.

Just picked up a few in time for winter (and a bunch of food).

www.kensfish.com

Matt
 

Tony

Alligator Snapping Turtle/Past Pres
Sweet.. Thanks fro the heads up, Matt.

I'll be adding a few of those to my order as well. :)
 

Avatar

Plenipotentiary-at-large
Must be that time

Just dropped similar today on an order but no heater's - have all I need for once. Flake food, sponge filter parts, breeder nets/boxes and a couple of Deep Blue freshwater T5 fixtures, and all I really really needed was de-chlor.

Ahhh, the glories of retail therapy.
 

JasonC

Members
Sam, have you used the deep water t5's before? if so, do you like? Been eyeing them for a bit now.
 

rsretep

Members
received my order yesterday bulbs,food(flake and pellets), circulation pump,c02 diffuser,and air diffusers
 

kevin911

Members
Jason I have deep blue, love it, just order me another.,, Massivore pellets is really cheap if people want to stock up. I got me some..
 

Avatar

Plenipotentiary-at-large
Sam, have you used the deep water t5's before? if so, do you like? Been eyeing them for a bit now.

Any more they're the only thing I buy. They're built better than the Coralifes (which have press-fit housings so they can't be opened/repaired if anything goes amiss), come with separate switches for each of the two bulbs and have moonlights to boot all for basically the same cost. The only thing they didn't get right was "hot-wiring the moonlights - if the fixture is on so are the moonlights and there's no way to put them on a separate circuit/timer . But $60 for a 48" freshwater fixture with moonlights? If the shorter fixtures were correspondingly less expensive I wouldn't be running anything else. Only other thing I'd change would be to give them legs, even just wire ones would work as the fixtures are very light - suppose one could fabricate something to get them up off the glass lids just a few inches and spread the light better.

The Coraliife units aren't bad, but I resent/reject stuff that's made to be tossed if it fails as it's just a crap way of manufacturing/doing business.
 

JasonC

Members
So maybe I am misunderstanding your description, but how can they be called moonlights if they cant be on separate from the flourescents? Wouldn't they just be "LED's to add a blue tinge to the water"?

The only thing they didn't get right was "hot-wiring the moonlights - if the fixture is on so are the moonlights and there's no way to put them on a separate circuit/timer .
 

Avatar

Plenipotentiary-at-large
Semantics

So maybe I am misunderstanding your description, but how can they be called moonlights if they cant be on separate from the flourescents? Wouldn't they just be "LED's to add a blue tinge to the water"?

Easy, the manufacturer calls them moonlights and just like that they are. And while the moonlights/LEDs are on all the time, if the fluorescents are switched off (at night) they're all that's left on. They're not bright enough to "tinge" much of anything when the other lights are on (unlike actinics) and since they're installed on a freshwater fixture there's really no other point/purpose in having them.

As currently made/shipped the LEDs can't be switched off independently of the fluorescents, but the converse isn't true. One plug/power feed, three circuits, only two with on/off switches (for the T5 bulbs).

Anyway they're sweet, compact, cool-running, low-energy fixtures that grow plants (even in something deep/tall like a 55 or 29). Not bad at all for a mere 56Ws on a 4' fixture. The only potentially better option that I'm aware of are 100% LED fixtures that use very little energy, although they're still pricey and I haven't heard good reports on their utility for growing plants. Also skeptical about the immutable type of light a straight LED array emits as opposed to the modifiable 6700K/10,000K configuration in a regular T5 fixture. Am guessing that we're many years away from a 100% LED array that can throw light that's comparable spectrally and aesthetically to a 6700k/Colormax or Gro-light combination.
 

JasonC

Members
Ah.. see, thats what I missed. So If I am reading you correctly, they are on as long as the unit is plugged in to the wall, and then you can switch the individual flourescents on/off w/ provided switches. Only problem I can see with that is using it with timers. But as long as the case is easily openable, May be interesting to see if the tubes and LED's can be separated to different circuits.

As far as LED looks are concerned, there is a growing base of fans on plantedtank.net who seems to like to DIY them rather than looking at the expensive ready made options. Cree LED's, I know, are available in increments from appx. 3200 kelvin to 10k kelvin. Granted, it is a *somewhat* 1 shot deal on getting it right. Been also seeing a number of threads with people using a mix of LED's on different circuits and then using an Arduino controller to mix to their liking, and also replicating sunrise/sunset. I also definitely like the fact that un-lensed, linear LED's give you a nice ripple effect, akin to what i hear MH lights give you and you cant get from flourescents diffuse light.

But I digress from the thread topic...:rolleyes:

Easy, the manufacturer calls them moonlights and just like that they are. And while the moonlights/LEDs are on all the time, if the fluorescents are switched off (at night) they're all that's left on.
<SNIP>

The only potentially better option that I'm aware of are 100% LED fixtures that use very little energy, although they're still pricey and I haven't heard good reports on their utility for growing plants. Also skeptical about the immutable type of light a straight LED array emits as opposed to the modifiable 6700K/10,000K configuration in a regular T5 fixture. Am guessing that we're many years away from a 100% LED array that can throw light that's comparable spectrally and aesthetically to a 6700k/Colormax or Gro-light combination.
 

Avatar

Plenipotentiary-at-large
Variety is the spice

By all means digress. Were I ever to get sufficiently wonky/obsessed to have time enough to start building my own LED units I will have effectively retired from the larger world. Nice thought, but I think I'd opt for gardening instead. But maybe someone will introduce decent sweetwater LED units sooner rather than later - perhaps it''s just the inexpensive aspect that will remain elusive.
 
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