We have been constantly advising our dedicated aquarists to keep away from cheap local aquarium products that are not from reputed brands. Yet we know it’s human to desire products for which they have to pay lesser than usual. It is the consequences that actually give some wits to ponder how much they gained by saving the few bucks and how much they actually lost in the whole process. This real incident that happened recently should at least be an eye opener for some of you.
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The Chandler, Ariz., preschool teacher working at the East Valley Jewish Community Center used contributions from aquarists to manage together a reef aquarium for the kids to enjoy. However a single silly mistake by her was to have a cheap Chinese LED light installed in the aquarium which caught fire and caused extensive damage to the building. For some of us buying cheap aquarium product might mean just building some pump out of trash pumps or skimmers that have been used. But some take these measures of installing cheap heaters or lights that can lead to fright uneventful incidents as this one.
The teacher regularly received donations of coral, fish and equipment and had built her own sump, overflow and skimmer to bring the reef knowledge to the children in her classroom. These might have proved to work so she took a very wrong step. For adequately lighting the aquarium , she turned to eBay and randomly picked up a couple of 35W LED pendants for around $75 a pop and all was fine until the fixture caught on fire blowing up the building’s sprinkler system. The fire was not that large credit to the sprinklers, but the water damage in many of the classrooms endangered to shut down the school and community center for months. Fortunately, the local community hooped collectively and with contributions was able to open in just a few days instead of months.
The teacher was no doubt trying to bring better environment for the students through a reef aquarium that could provide them much of the beneficial knowledge practically only to have the cheap fixture cause an uneventful incident that could have been hazardous if left unchecked for a little more while. She was sorry for her mistake of buying a local cheap lighting fixture for the good work she wanted to do at the community center. She wrote in some posts on a reef aquarium blog that she was not aware of anything about the brand of which they made the purchase.
It is significant to know the company’s previous experiences through reviews before getting tempted by their offering you cheap aquarium equipments. Thoroughly check for guarantees and reliability of the product before ordering it on e-shopping. What might look tempting regarding price might not be the same when it comes to quality. And not just lights, we would advise you on not buying any aquarium equipments from a cheap local brand with no reviews anywhere. Reef keeping is a bit pricey hobby but since you have taken to it, you must be aware of what might lead to losing your precious livestock. In a blog, the teacher says that the lighting fixture she bought looked somewhat as this:
