Fluval Roma 240 lighting

[JDFishFanatic]

Hi All,

I've had my tank for around 7 years now and the fitting for the lights has started to fail. One of the fittings does not work at all and the other is very inconsistent. Can anyone advise me on how to remedy this? Ideally I'd get a replacement part but I cannot seem to find one, so other options are welcome.

The tank is 48 inches/4 feet long.

 

[Colin_T]

What about getting an after market LED light unit for the tank.

 

[Byron]

What type of lighting do you have now? And is this a planted tank, or no live plants?

 

[JDFishFanatic]

What type of lighting do you have now? And is this a planted tank, or no live plants?

I couldn't tell you the lights that I have currently, but I plan on having some low light plants. Would a fluval Aquasky be effective?

 

[JDFishFanatic]

What about getting an after market LED light unit for the tank.

Would a fluval Aquasky work?

 

[Byron]

I couldn't tell you the lights that I have currently, but I plan on having some low light plants. Would a fluval Aquasky be effective?

By type I meant LED, T8 fluorescent, T5 fluorescent, incandescent... . Sometimes repair is not so difficult. My T8 ballasts began failing after a couple decades and not being able to find similar lighting now, I repaired them with basic T8 shop lights in the housing. I repaired three 4-foot T8 dual tube fixtures this way, and they were super light for moderate-light requiring plants.

Fluval Aquasky is LED and my experience with LED over a fish tank has been minimal and disastrous. There are good LED light units for planted tanks, but I will let those who have them advise which ones. Much LED is too blue (too little red) and not workable with plants.

 

[Back in the fold]

Most aquarium lighting isn't that good. The fixtures don't seem to be thought out too well by the manufacturers. The moist environment corrodes things within two years most times. Some years back you could buy brightly polished reflectors to fit into your strip lights and they are needed because the white plastic they come with isn't very effective. You need the full spectrum of light as well and one bulb / tube just can't deliver. I don't really know anything about LED except that I'm skeptical. So here's my latest thinking. Lights such as marijuana culturists use, hung high above the tanks as they are very bright. Diffusers can take some of the intensity out. I am very frustrated by the lack of decent aquarium specific lighting that is available. Fluorescent tubes do work very well and there are many good ones on the market but this LED craze is making the manufacturers move away from them. Who do we complain to ?

 

[seangee]

In my last tank I managed to keep mine going by replacing ballasts with standard units. They did finally expire and I went for the Arcadia stretch LEDs with good results. The Aquaskys get good reviews but I expect you're paying more for the funky programming and remote.

I currently have 3 tanks with built in LEDs. 2 of these work well. One is an AquaOne system. No frills but it has a dual timer and a "moonlight" (blue) setting. The other is a fluval system, similar to the aquasky but no timer. I just set this on 100% white and have attached it to a timer.

The third tank is too new to tell but has a budget LED strip in the hood. If that turns out to be inadequate I still have 2 Arcadia units and I have already checked that one of them is the correct size.

Tanks are all low tech.