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New Tunze refugium light review


Jlpete

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For the last several months I have been fighting to keep my chateo going.  I tried several different led lights and all I was getting was algea growth but no chateo growth.  I just recently bought the new tunze magnitic refuguim light.  My chateo is finally growing again plus with the ability to lower it down closer into the sump I am seeing less algea growth every where else.  I was starting to see algea growing in my return lines.  

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Nice, I was looking at that light recently and it's good to hear it works considering how much it cost [emoji6]

I’ve always grown my chaeto under a cheap cfl from Home Depot and it grows extremely fast. They are like 10 bucks plus your fixture to hold it. Nothin fancy but definitely does the trick if you don’t want to spend the money on the higher end fuge lights.


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3 minutes ago, PowderBlue said:


I’ve always grown my chaeto under a cheap cfl from Home Depot and it grows extremely fast. They are like 10 bucks plus your fixture to hold it. Nothin fancy but definitely does the trick if you don’t want to spend the money on the higher end fuge lights.


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I bought a full spectrum screw-in LED light and flexible mount for the sump, was like $30. Hoping that works well, I was admiring the Tunze one since it's submersible 

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9 hours ago, PowderBlue said:


I’ve always grown my chaeto under a cheap cfl from Home Depot and it grows extremely fast. They are like 10 bucks plus your fixture to hold it. Nothin fancy but definitely does the trick if you don’t want to spend the money on the higher end fuge lights.


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I use some literal $1 cfl's from Walmart in some cheap fixtures. My macro grows like a weed. But those tunze lights look so nice. My cfl's will never look that good. Lol

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7 hours ago, xmas_one said:

What’s the IP rating on these? I’d be real interested if I was able to submerge it in one of the chambers on my AIO. 

From Tunze (https://www.tunze.com/US/en/products/catalogue/categories.html?user_tunzeprod_pi1[predid]=-infoxober010):  

Quote

The eco chic LED lights with protection class IP 68 operate permanently in the air but also under water. The special manufacturing process doesn't just guarantee the water resistance, it also enables the permanent underwater operation which also relieves the pressure on the aquarium heater. 

So it is fairly submersible, but heats the water a bit when running submerged.  I love the marketing talk: its not a bug, its a feature.  Its not that it increases the temperature of your water when submerged--no,no, it actually "relieves pressure from your heater".  :) But at this wattage, it might not add up to much in larger system volumes.

Also, I imagine in the submerged application, there will be a lot less light lost upward because it won't be reflecting off a water surface.  I had a fuge-type light I in my old system that I ran off-hours at night, but just the reflected light spill coming from behind my cabinet made my living room look like some sort of a grow-operation to my neighbors.

Thanks for the write up.  If this light fits the budget for my next build I might give it a try--seems to be a really good size, clean and unobtrusive.

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