My Personal TaoTronics Review

Discussion in 'LED Aquarium Lighting' started by Kevin3884, Mar 21, 2012.

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  1. Kevin3884

    Kevin3884 Tassled File Fish

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    So, after seeing some people buying these Taotronic fixtures I wanted to give them a shot and give a review on em. I wanted just 1 to see how it would look over my tank (I'm already lit with AI) which I got in the mail today. So here goes. Out of the box...very sleek fixture, much like my AI SOL blues actually. Plug in and ur in business...but business is noisy...the 3 fans are pretty loud especially since i cant even hear my SOLs when I stick my ear against em....but man is this TaoTronics fixture BRIGHT!...I am impressed with the color output...and the whites are def a higher lumen output then my SOLs which give a different color to the corals...granted I havent permenantly installed the fixture (and debating on if I will because of the noise of the fans). But if you have a tank and your not fortunate enough to have ur sump and skimmer and all that jazz in a separate room and you can already hear that stuff running underneath the tank....these fixtures put off A LOT of light. The negative side of them being so bright is that they do not have a dimming capability...which means acclimation could be a pain in the butt.... If i decide to install it on my display I will post pics.. But for the money it seems like a pretty good fixture if you dont mind noise. I will post more about this fixture once I learn more about it...lol
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2012
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  3. ingtar_shinowa

    ingtar_shinowa Giant Squid

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    Having reviewed you review, I find myself a little concerned at the high percentage of run-on sentences as well as the complete disregard for fragments. I give you two thumbs up and 4.7 thumbs down.
     
  4. Kevin3884

    Kevin3884 Tassled File Fish

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    i didnt say the review was going to be grammatically correct...i just said it was a review...lol
     
  5. Havasuviking

    Havasuviking Plankton

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    hopefully we will get some good info from you
     
  6. ingtar_shinowa

    ingtar_shinowa Giant Squid

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    lol kevin! You should put some frags in a 10 gallon plumbed into your system and see how fast these will grow them!
     
  7. Kevin3884

    Kevin3884 Tassled File Fish

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    im afraid they would bleach the crap out of a 10G..lol Im tellin u..these things are like 400W MH bright...trust me i looked into them...bad idea..lol But we arent reviewing my intelligence...just the lights..good thing..
     
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  9. ingtar_shinowa

    ingtar_shinowa Giant Squid

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    And DEFINITELY not your grammar!
     
  10. cosmo

    cosmo Giant Squid

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    Ingtar, are you an English teacher? Damn, I'm glad I'm not the only one!!!! Thx kev for not being the only one who didn't know they were writing their thesis!lol I'm interested in seeing a long term review of these. Most I read back in the day, they seemed to have technical/rust issues a few months down the road.
     
  11. barbianj

    barbianj Hammer Head Shark

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    I agree completely with your review, Kevin. I'll replace the fans in mine when I get a chance. My reef tank is in a separate room, so the noise is not a big deal, but it sounds like you're in a tanning bed, lol. My LED units had to be 3" lower than my 6 bulb TEK to achieve the same PAR. The color is much better than the T5's, though. So far, all of the corals are doing great!
     
  12. newguy420

    newguy420 Skunk Shrimp

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    These are becoming wry popular. On a few different forums there are huge threads about them. I believe recently there was a dimmable version being sold on eBay. It was like $20 more. I just received my eshine fixtures the other day. I went with them because you can completely customize the number, led colors, optics and layout. The pricing was almost the same but shipping was steep.