Tropiquarium 88

[supermatelot]

Hi,
Anyone familiar with this tank? My lighting has gone, have tried bypassing the timer but to no avail.
I need advice on repairing or refurbing the lighting, bearing in mind the heater and pump are all fed from one socket via the hood. Would be most grateful for any advice.
Thanks.

PS.
I'd personally rather just fork out for a better, more customisable tank but - wife says no.
She does not appreciate that plants need light. My other tank is brackish 1.005 so I don't think I can move them there in the interim.

 

[Liam2368]

i had this tank and had similar issues. i ended up getting really frustrated with it and putting my foot through the hood lol so new tank it was, it is the most ridiculous design having your heater/lighting/filter all running off one plug. hagen no longer make spares fir the tank so if you need parts there going to be a pita to find.

 

[sj81]

Hi, i have the same issue and still cant work out whats wrong. i noticed a few sights saying its possibly the timer but that works so not sure i replaced timers and bypassed the timer so i think its actually the light unit itself. but if you get any joy would be helpful

Look on line as i did see somewhere somone ripped the light unit out of it and used the led strips you can get instead it looked great but sounded alot of time and effort but it is possible and saves having to replace the tank

 

[OldMan47]

Lighting troubleshooting is rather straight forward. First off inspect the fluorescent tubes. If there are dark areas near the ends, the tube needs to be replaced. Simple huh? If it is not the tubes, the only things remaining are the ballast and the wiring. If the wiring is solid, it is time to replace the ballast. Each ballast is rated for a particular one or sometimes more tube configurations and has a diagram on the ballast to show how to wire it. If you are going to do a ballast replacement, I have had some luck with the Pony series of ballasts in the US. Just make sure that the input voltage and frequency match your household wiring. I live in the US where we use 120VAC, 60Hz systems but the UK uses 220Vac and 50Hz systems. You don't want to end up with one ballast on the other system, in either direction. I strongly favor an electronic ballast rather than the older potted transformer approach. It seems to give a more reliable performance and in most cases is also more energy efficient.