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Jonine · 07-07-2006, 12:14 PM

The part that burned up is a big white cylinder thing (there are 2 of them). It's a capacitor, or conductor, or something like that - I can't remember right now. There was no warning as far as we can tell. We had the unit on a timer and they were working fine on Sunday, came home Monday and the actinics and moon lights were on but the halides weren't and the house smelled REALLLLLLY bad, like super glue or paint thinner or something like that.

We bought our Odyssea MH from the LFS who was kinda freaked when I told them there's a history of this because they don't want to sell something that's a hazard. Their going to check it out with their supplier so I'm curious to see if they'll work anything out with us. Most Odyssea MH horror stories I've heard are from people who bought them from Aquatrader, and then had really bad customer service when they called to complain. I've never bought anything from them so I don't know if it's true - it's just what I've read. I don't know if that's a coincidence for Aquatrader or if they just sell THAT MANY units that it's bum luck that their units keep catching fire. I was looking though, and they have a 2007 model Odyssea MH with a redesigned ballast that has 3 separate plugs for each of the lights instead of running MH, actinic and moon lights all on 1 plug. I don't know if these are made any better or not. LFS guy said we could try to get a new balast or we could just buy parts and try to rebuild the one we have, so I guess it may be fixable, but I'm not totally sure if anything else is damaged and we're not very handy so we'd be making our own fire risk if we tried.

We broke down and put 1/2 down on Coralife MH yesterday - getting it today. Too much money invested in the tank to mess around for the week or more it would take to get the ballast (if we can even get a replacement one), so it's not worth the risk. We just bought 3 new pieces of Frogspawn this weekend. I came across a guy somewhere who was looking to buy just an Odyssea fixture and build his own ballast so I might see if I can track him down and see if he's still interested so we can at least get some money back. We bought the Odyssea to save money and in the long run it's costing us more.

07-07-2006, 12:14 PM	#11 (permalink)
Jonine Plankton Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Wisconsin Age: 36 Posts: 4 Karma: 3	The part that burned up is a big white cylinder thing (there are 2 of them). It's a capacitor, or conductor, or something like that - I can't remember right now. There was no warning as far as we can tell. We had the unit on a timer and they were working fine on Sunday, came home Monday and the actinics and moon lights were on but the halides weren't and the house smelled REALLLLLLY bad, like super glue or paint thinner or something like that. We bought our Odyssea MH from the LFS who was kinda freaked when I told them there's a history of this because they don't want to sell something that's a hazard. Their going to check it out with their supplier so I'm curious to see if they'll work anything out with us. Most Odyssea MH horror stories I've heard are from people who bought them from Aquatrader, and then had really bad customer service when they called to complain. I've never bought anything from them so I don't know if it's true - it's just what I've read. I don't know if that's a coincidence for Aquatrader or if they just sell THAT MANY units that it's bum luck that their units keep catching fire. I was looking though, and they have a 2007 model Odyssea MH with a redesigned ballast that has 3 separate plugs for each of the lights instead of running MH, actinic and moon lights all on 1 plug. I don't know if these are made any better or not. LFS guy said we could try to get a new balast or we could just buy parts and try to rebuild the one we have, so I guess it may be fixable, but I'm not totally sure if anything else is damaged and we're not very handy so we'd be making our own fire risk if we tried. We broke down and put 1/2 down on Coralife MH yesterday - getting it today. Too much money invested in the tank to mess around for the week or more it would take to get the ballast (if we can even get a replacement one), so it's not worth the risk. We just bought 3 new pieces of Frogspawn this weekend. I came across a guy somewhere who was looking to buy just an Odyssea fixture and build his own ballast so I might see if I can track him down and see if he's still interested so we can at least get some money back. We bought the Odyssea to save money and in the long run it's costing us more.