Ecoxotic panorama pro: 1 year reviw

I purchased 3 24" pro fixtures about 1 year ago and I'd like to report my experience to date.

THE GOOD:
These fixtures have an excellent color spectrum which looks great and i can grow most anything under them (an extra strip in each fixture wouldn't hurt and thats their new approach).

They don't overheat my tank at all.

They have great customer service.

Expandability provides uniform coverage and little color banding.

THE BAD:
These fixtures have LOTS of connections nd the connectors from the three into one wires are identical so one could easily plug things in wrong (i.e. plug a strip directly into the transformer OR plug one 3 to 1 into another 3 to 1, etc.). This is very complicated with multiple fixtures! replacing lights takes lots of time and dilligence to ensure the wiring is correct.

The wiring covers are cramped and its difficult to squeeze another fixture's wire under them. The wiring covers screws rust and want o strip out the aluminum slot they go into. They are a PITA to add fixtures to... Not like the ads where they magically expand.

My setup requires 6 outlets. Mahing room in APEX EB8 is, well, interesting. They shock me lightly if i touch them when my hand is in the tank

They have good customer service. This is bad? IME this is a sign of companies that experience lots of quality issues.

THE UGLY:

A couple of dimmers failed. I dissasembled one-it was melted internally. Scary. I eventually removed them all when i got my APEX. They are advertized as dimmable...thats true, but you have to do this manually, in my case via 6 different rheostats.

Oh yeah, ALL 15 OF MY MODULES FAILED IN LESS THAN A YEAR. They slowly started "melting" leds within each strip, then total failure. This occured slowly over several months and i didn't notice it at first. Customer service replaced them but it took a long time from when i noticed, negotiating with customer service, shipping and then finding time to rip out my fixtures to replace them which can take a long time (my career requires lots of OT). My last two strips failed recently and I just bought more-I dont want any more help from customer service. I lost quite a few corals in the first round.

I was told that these should have fans on them by customer service. The absence of need for noisy fans was one of the reasons i bought them. In my opinion, the reflectors and their hood design may have contributed to trapping heat. They have changed the design (because of failures?) but the old ones had small electrical components that were exposed through the epoxy they use to pot the LEDs in. New ones dont have this issue. This may have contributed?

SUMMARY:

I spent $1500 on these to reduce cost (bulbs and bills), heat and downtime for replacing bulbs. I have wasted a LOT of time trying to fix and replace these strips over the past 6 months or so... I hope the replacements last. I'm poor, this isn't pocket change to me.

As i was replacing the last of these today, i removed my netting to remove my lights and my favorite fairy wrasse silently exited my tank. It was very upsetting. Between that and my corals, I've lost hundreds of dollars in livestock. The constant hardware repairs are taking the fun out of this hobby.

I would never buy these again. I give them a D- (woulda given an F if they didn't have such nice color).

I'd like to hear about your experiences. If you've experienced similar issues, please post here or PM me.

Matt

 

It took about an hor and a half to tear the lights out, fix and reinstall. One set of lights wasnt on and I had to check every connection! Annoying.

I also found that three of my new fixtures hane a burnt out LED. They'll go soon too. Great.

Fun sunday. I'll post pics soon.

 

The attached pics show the burned out LEDs and the last shows what a tangle of wires assoc. w three of these fixtures looks like.

 

No wait, thats me being an idiot... I don't know why they didn't attach?

 

David, I hope i dont need to run these too much longer. Imo, The blog concept seems to defeat the purpose of an interactive forum.

Hart, funny you mention flashing. I have not heard that but mine do flash occasionally. It happens when the whites are off in the pm but occasionally one will flash like lighting. This doesn't fit your explanation tho...they can be off for some time so they shouldn't be hot. I always assumed it was my apex. Also, even wierder was when I had them off yesterday and ALL the lights were unplugged fo a half hour one light flashed brightly for a split second. It seems to defy (my understanding of) physics but it happened!

Shayna, try to keep the strips cool. I dont like the reflectors or their hood design, i think it traps heat around the strip. They threw in a couple of magenta strips when i first had problems, but i thought they gave my tank an overwhelming sick color and removed them.

Brandon, best of luck. How long have you had them?