Ebay Luminaire - Eqj Trading

[Themuleous]

This a note to anyone thinking of buying or whom has recently bought a tank luminary from EQJ trading, who mostly sell via eBay but who also have their own website.

I got a 3x24w T5 version of the luminary they sell for xmas and added it to my nano tank when I did a rescape on the 7th January. The plants I added were HC, both normal and dwarf riccia and more recently hornwort. Since adding the plants and new lighting I have noticed in particular the HC very quickly looses its leaves and whilst is does grow and even pearls, the leaves are very small and its got a long spindly growth form, that is nothing like it should be. Having chatting to Zig and via him with George, it seems likely that the lights supplied with these luminaries are not very good for growing plants, even the daylight ones which is what were supplied with mine. I have been running the tank with 2 bulbs so 48w for 8hrs for 5 weeks now which should have been plenty but the plants really aren't doing well, and the hornwort, normally a very robust plant melts quite quickly, especially the older parts.

I thought I would just post to let people know that its probably a good idea to change the supplied bulbs with triphosphor bulbs. Plant specific ones from people like Aracida can be obtained from Aquaessentials. However, if like me you don't have the money to spend nearly £60 quid on new bulbs I have found this site to supply (hopefully) decent replacements at a fraction of the cost.

I have 3x24w osram bulbs on order at a cost of just over £15 including P+P. I will probably change the current HC and ricca in the tank next month, but in the mean time will see how the new lighting affects the HC and riccia in the tank, and will of course let people know how they get on. The key to getting plant bulbs is to get triphosphor (or now ever quad-phosphor) bulbs as these will have wavelength spectrum spikes in all the right places, i.e. in the red, green and blue wavelengths.

Hope that's of use to people

Sam

 

[Dave Spencer]

Damn it! I have just bought the 3 x 24W off EQJ Trading. Mind you, I have been looking at replacement plant specific lamps to replace one or two of the daylights anyway.

Cheers for the info, Sam. I shall just have to replace all three.

 

[SuperColey1]

Top man. The T8 tubes on here are great value. Can't find twin compacts to fit the Interpet, so I guess I'll have to get them from SurreyPetSupplies, but I'll keep this for the T8s

 

[Dave Spencer]

Yep, with Surreypetsupplies and this link for Osram, I am now sorted for cheap lighting.

 

[voo]

Has anyone tried the ADA light tubes?

 

[afroturf]

I have to agree i've got a EQJ light on my new tank and i am currently waiting for some new tubes for it. I've ordered two aquamedic t5 plant tubes onlineaquariumstore.com but i've been waiting for ages for them, still aint arrived. I'll buy them from your link in the future Sam.

 

[Themuleous]

Glad this has been of help to people. My new bulbs arrived today, so will hook them up this evening. At 15quid for 3 its not a huge price tag for (hopefully) better plant growth. Will update in a week or two once the HC has had time to adjust.

Keep your fingers crossed!

Sam

 

[excaliborg]

Glad this has been of help to people. My new bulbs arrived today, so will hook them up this evening. At 15quid for 3 its not a huge price tag for (hopefully) better plant growth. Will update in a week or two once the HC has had time to adjust.

Keep your fingers crossed!

Sam

Great, let us know how it goes! I've also been looking at one of these luminaires because its a cheap way of getting a lot of light, however I'm not sure I could cope with the disadvantages of one such as fish jumping out and loss of water through evaporation. Also not really too keen on how they look on anything but an ultra modern tank and stand with expensive glassware for the filter and CO2 diffusion.

 

[lljdma06]

Amazing the difference a bulb can make. Good luck with your HC and Riccia, Sam. Hopefully, they'll bounce back.

 

[MojoDex]

ive had to luminaires off them and both have been good but first thing i did was change the bulbs for plant groth ones

 

[George Farmer]

I'm a little surprised the old bulbs were so bad. Were they the "Bio light f. Plants" as per their website?

Did the "melting" start when you ran all three tubes?

 

[Themuleous]

Haven't a clue what bulbs there were, would need to check the bulb itself (will do when I get home, bring on home time!) All the advert said was daylight, which certainly matches the colour they give off.

TBH George, so am I. The HC does pearl which I was sure was a sign of decent light. And I've never ran all three tubes so can be that. Also I have run 6 to 8 hrs and everything in between same affect re the melting.

Not sure if Zig forwarded you my PM to him, but will post it as there are other possibilities.

Hi Zig,

Hows things?

Just a few question about the HC in my nano if you don't mind. When I rescaped the tank in early January to the current layout, I added two pots of HC, and then about 3 weeks later a third pot. All has had a lot of die back with the leaves it comes with very suddenly turning transparent (it could be as quickly as over night, or appears that way, maybe 1-2 days max). After which there has been some new growth, but the leaves are very small, its not spreading very much and just looks spindely, which is a classic sign of light deficiency in terrestrial plants. Just wondering what your thought might be?

Sorry not got a pic at the mo, as cant find my sisters camera but can get one over the wkd if necessary.

My initial thoughts are as follows,

i) My first thoughts are it could be the luminaire, or more specifically the bulbs, daylight they might be, but thinking perhaps they might not be full spectrum? This is the only change from my old setup, apart from using tropica trace rather than AE trace, which I wouldn't think would do any harm. Its also been around 5weeks since the change which when I first set the tank up in 2006 was enough time for the HC to be growing well. The plants do pearl but wonder if thats purely due to a lack of surface movement and thus the water retains its O2 or that the lighting is so powerful that the plants dont have a choice? laugh.gif

ii) I've been running this tank nearly a year and wondering if the substrate could be exhausted? Seems unlikely though, esp given the loading of the water column.

iii) PO4 is 2pmm and NO3 is 20ppm, I know HC is generally NO3 hungry but that level would seem fine to me.

iv) I sometimes use room temperature water, which could I guess be shocking the HC and causeing the problems, but I did the same thing with all my old scapes and they all had HC.

That's all I can think of really, my main thoughts are the lights. Could change to Arcadia plant pros if needs be or some cheap triphosphar T5's like these? There is a lot of algae in the tank; BBA, green and brown thread, poss even a bit of BGA and green spot.

There is normal and dwarf riccia in the tank which is doing ok, but not as fast as I had expected and the normal size riccia is growing quite tall. The hornwort melts quite a bit, certainly the older bits, it grew like crazy under my old T8 Arcadia freshwater lights.

Thanks for the help smile.gif

Sam

 

[Themuleous]

Right, just got home and the supplied bulbs are CH lighting, F24T5/HG-BIO. Having done a bit of a Google search, it seems they are produced by some Chinese company, but I cant find anything about their wavelength, etc. I also found that Mr G got one of these luminary's and have PM'ed him to see if he changed the bulbs or not, will see what he says.

Either way have changed to the tri-phosphor bulbs, the new ones look very slightly more orange, still a nice white colour just not as brilliant a white.

Sam

 

[zig]

How's this working out Sam or is it to early to tell.

I did a good bit of digging around about these tubes and they remain a mystery as far as a definitive k rating, I wouldnt pay any attention to EQJ trading calling them plant tubes, haven't been using mine yet so I have no experience with them as regards growing plants, but if I was having problems with algae I think I would want to rule out the tubes as a possibility. They look fine, but, I suppose the unknown factor here would make me wonder, could I sleep peacefully in my bed at night without swapping them out, this is the question............

Any updates

 

[Themuleous]

It is a bit early to tell at the mo Zig, the tank is in such a state (algae farm springs to mind) that I've given up on the EI for the time being, to much hassle to do water changes every other day when I know I'm going to rip the tank apart! I have been dosing trace and ferts so if there is going to be any change I would think it will happen. Certainly I would hope to notice a change in the HC leaf shape. The plants will also need a bit of time to adapt to the new lighting though, but will def keep this thread posted if I notice any change, and will of course see how it goes when I rescape the tank in a few weeks time.

I spoke to Mr G and he replaced the supplied tubes with Arcadia ones and didn't really use the supplied ones so couldn't really tell, but it does show that the lighting rig with the right bulbs works a treat, his tank is full of health.

Sam