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I would like to bring up that one of my taos has stopped working...the blue lights to be exact the whites still work but the blue do not. The warranty I do not believe will help at all I have tried contacting them and they send mt messages to the ebay seller and the ebay seller tells me im going to have to pay to send the lights to them and pay a $90 fee because the light is broken...I cant send the light back the corals will die...I will keep all updated i will post all the emails too soon if I have too I have seen no such bad reviews yet on taos but I will make it known that there are problems if they do not act soon.:)
 
Sorry to hear about that but I have heard a lot about Ebay sellers not standing behind the products that they are selling. That is the main reason I do not buy anything from Ebay.
 
bigben2057 said:
I would like to bring up that one of my taos has stopped working...the blue lights to be exact the whites still work but the blue do not. The warranty I do not believe will help at all I have tried contacting them and they send mt messages to the ebay seller and the ebay seller tells me im going to have to pay to send the lights to them and pay a $90 fee because the light is broken...I cant send the light back the corals will die...I will keep all updated i will post all the emails too soon if I have too I have seen no such bad reviews yet on taos but I will make it known that there are problems if they do not act soon.:)
Click to expand...

Can I ask what seller, and was it a Taotronics branded light, or a copycat panel?

This was (and is) my main concern with these panels...long term reliability and servicing.

Also, how close to the water did you keep them? I wonder if splash led to salt buildup...
 
Gregcoyote said:
First is shot at noon day in Caribbean. 50' of water +100' visibility. No flash. The wreck of the Rhone off of Salt Island. Second picture is of creatures with flash. Without it, there would be no color other than shades of blue at this depth. Similar to a all blue light aquarium. It's realistic, but boring without the full spectrum of colors IMO.
Click to expand...

That sure looks like a Hawaiian slipper lobster in the 2nd picture... To me they look like a cross between a lobster and a cockroach ., a very strange looking creature to see in person .
 
bigben2057 said:
I would like to bring up that one of my taos has stopped working...the blue lights to be exact the whites still work but the blue do not. The warranty I do not believe will help at all I have tried contacting them and they send mt messages to the ebay seller and the ebay seller tells me im going to have to pay to send the lights to them and pay a $90 fee because the light is broken...I cant send the light back the corals will die...I will keep all updated i will post all the emails too soon if I have too I have seen no such bad reviews yet on taos but I will make it known that there are problems if they do not act soon.:)
Click to expand...

I can perhaps look around and dig up a driver for you. They are easy to exchange out. You might even find the right driver (voltage/wattage) in the lighting section of the hardware store. Unless your panel is dimmable, that takes a PCM driver.
 
mwilliams said:
Sorry to hear about that but I have heard a lot about Ebay sellers not standing behind the products that they are selling. That is the main reason I do not buy anything from Ebay.
Click to expand...

Cheapest price isn't always the best price. I warrantied my Chinese panels when I sold them and kept spare parts, but I couldn't/wouldn't sell them for $130.
 
Dary421 said:
That sure looks like a Hawaiian slipper lobster in the 2nd picture... To me they look like a cross between a lobster and a cockroach ., a very strange looking creature to see in person .
Click to expand...

Correct! That photo was from several different locations, including a cave dive in FW.
 
I don't see nothing but blue corals, and I don't run reds or greens. I'm not talking full actinic. That look is not something I enjoy and only use it as a dusk/dawn thing, but red and green corals do glow red and green under blue light. They don't suddenly turn blue. the only thing that doesn't look right under the blues is my yellow tang. it looks like a scopus with the blues on.
 
That Last video Jeff posted looks like a FOWLR tank. I didn't see any coral growing.
 
I just received my lights today. I plugged them in to make sure they work. I won't be using them for awhile until my tank is ready to be built as I'm just gathering parts. The only thing I wish I could do is replace the manual dimmers with modules that could be controlled with an apex.
 
Morangus said:
I just received my lights today. I plugged them in to make sure they work. I won't be using them for awhile until my tank is ready to be built as I'm just gathering parts. The only thing I wish I could do is replace the manual dimmers with modules that could be controlled with an apex.
Click to expand...
can you do that??
 
I wish... I'm pretty handy with the electrical stuff so I'm going to poke around and see what I can come up with... I would have thought someone would have done it by now though if it was possible. The issue is finding the parts that will work with the apex.
 
The guys at RapidLED have drivers (I think for sale) that are Apex and with the proper module, Reefkeeper controllable. Same ones they use in their newest Onxy fixtures. You need a PCM driver, which you already have, but the interface module is what you need.

Mean Well produces cheap drivers that can be computer controlled.

http://www.rapidled.com/dimmable-drivers/
 
Last edited:
Looks like the 0-10V Dimmable Nano Driver with Potentiometer would work... If/when I go with an apex unit I may look into this. At least if still be able to manually dim them if I still had that need. Thanks for the link!
 
Hard to find something that will fit nicely on a 48" wide tank and has brackets rather than hangs as well as programmable. So much to read here that I take in too much info and flip flop on what to pick. Any suggestions lol.
 
That 48" fixture you posted doesn't have much info about how programmable it really is. False statements like " A reading of 300 par is great but you can still achieve this reading with a 4500k spectrum, which can result in damage to your corals. The right spectrum is what you want and your corals need."
bother me and leave me feeling a bit uneasy about the seller. If they have an excellent fixture they only need to tell us about it.
 
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