Aquarium light rip off !!

[macabethiel]

I went to my local Garden Centre that has a pretty good aquarium section run by the Maidenhead Aquatics Franchise for a pair of flourescent T8 36" tubes they were a Power Glow type spectrum for fish & plant health.

The cost was a whopping £40.88 for two light tubes !

I commented to the guy on the till that when I first kept tropical fish you could get two Growlux tubes with change out of a fiver and that today a four foot tube for my garage lights is only £4.00 so I guess the Pet Industry is making a killing.

I found some on the internet for about £33.00 a pair but it is not the kind of thing I would expect to arrive undamaged. Made me think about putting in ordinary household type tubes that are pretty cheap but when I tried this many years ago my fish looked so washed out it was unreal.

To add insult to the cost he told me they should be changed every 12 months due to loss of the light spectrum. My previous tubes packed up after less than 2 years. I replace the starters each time as they are only 50p each from local electrical wholesalers.

 

[nemofish2000]

Thats cheap, my daughter keeps lizards and the 30" reptiglow tubes are £23 each and i need 2, they last about 6-8 month, swap you....:thumb2

 

[macabethiel]

What expensive Hobies we have !!

Ouch thats not cheap but my point is why do they retail at 4 or 5 times the cost of a house daylight tube of the same size ? Mine are Hagen brand made in Japan.

I reckon they must have a massive mark up somewhere in the distibution chain to arrive at that price in the shops.

Okay there are LED lights available now for Aquariums but the prices are crazy!

 

[Sweety]

Maidenhead Aquatics is charging the earth these days, selling neon tetra's for £2.50 each now the whole sale price is only 20p +vat each some mark up they are adding:doh These days i'm mainly keeping lower to medium light level plants so now using SMD LED light panels on my 2ft tank which seem to be working well:thumb2

 

[macabethiel]

SMD LED panels

Maidenhead Aquatics is charging the earth these days, selling neon tetra's for £2.50 each now the whole sale price is only 20p +vat each some mark up they are adding:doh These days i'm mainly keeping lower to medium light level plants so now using SMD LED light panels on my 2ft tank which seem to be working well:thumb2

Is the SMD LED light panel expensive and how does it fit into the hood ?

 

[Sweety]

Is the SMD LED light panel expensive and how does it fit into the hood ?

Got mine off ebay which are the same as these http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2x-Car-In...656385?hash=item27f61a8001:g:NBcAAOSw-W5UrQUK they have a sticky backing to them so just stuck them (2 panels) to the over head light bar I made for the tank & they light up the 15" deep tank fine, used an old 12v transformer to power them but an old cb power pack or computer power pack would also work fine

 

[macabethiel]

Going to switch over to LED's on both my tanks eventually.

Thanks for that just ordered some on e-bay designed for aquarium use.
£12.00 Cheaper than two tubes !!

 

[jims-terrano]

Used to love keeping fish. Used Gro-Lux and also later on Power-Glo which was supposed to be the same just brighter but to be honest I preffered the Gro-Lux. Thought about getting another setup but the cost of it all has put me off. Things have gone up in price dramatically since I last kept fish.

 

[macabethiel]

Aquarium Bug

Used to love keeping fish. Used Gro-Lux and also later on Power-Glo which was supposed to be the same just brighter but to be honest I preffered the Gro-Lux. Thought about getting another setup but the cost of it all has put me off. Things have gone up in price dramatically since I last kept fish.

If you want to have another tank there are some bargains on the used market as they do not hold their value.

My main Aquarium is a 4 ft x 18" x 15" it is a fully framed tank made by Juwel in the 70's & 80's I have owned mine since 1972 and had it converted for sump filtration about 15 years ago.

http://s296.photobucket.com/user/macabethiele/media/teds phone 010_zpssieh6yqp.jpg.html?o=1

 

[jims-terrano]

Reminds me of my first tank. Mind you wife always used to have Kuli Loach that you never saw until it was a big clean out time which as you know is not often, once a year if that.

 

[macabethiel]

Kuli Loach

Reminds me of my first tank. Mind you wife always used to have Kuli Loach that you never saw until it was a big clean out time which as you know is not often, once a year if that.

Kuli Loach are great fish quite hard to find these days, having a sump filter rules these out as they would swim into the intake and become shredded by the pump impellor.

I am a big fan of Clown Loach (hence my Avatar) they are also prone to hide most of the time until they have a silly hour where they swim up and down the tank sides in a big shoal. I have about 20 of these plus a couple of rareish Plecs that I see once every month or so.

Clown Loach have no scales they just have an exterior skin, this means they demand good quality water if they are to stay healthy and grow.

The beauty of sump filtration is you never have to disturb the tank itself when you clean it out. My sump filter is 50% cleaned every 6 or 8 months depending on what food I feed the fish. They love raw Corgette but the waste product gums my filer in about 3 months so it's an occasional treat only.