This product can be used one of several ways. The intended use is to clip it to the lip of your tank, making the lighting act like recessed lighting inside the tank. You can adjust the angle of the light, which is quite convenient. Actually pointing the light toward your glass has the effect of almost front-lighting your tank because of the mirror effect against the glass (assuming you put the lights on the front-side of the tank). Very interesting lighting effect.
The lamps didn't quite fit the lip of our 180 gallon tank (3 lamps across the front). The ridge was just too wide for these. Fortunately they come with optional suction cups, so the lamps are affixed just inside the front of our tank.
Although these lamps come with a nighttime mode, the only way to activate it is to toggle a physical switch on the power cord, so you can't put that on a timer without purchasing separate bars to be kept permanently on the nighttime mode. That makes it a pretty expensive lighting solution overall.
The light is nice, on the blue side, which highlights certain kinds of fish, but makes our natural tank look a bit too cold. The light is not as bright as we would like, but it's about what we expected given that each fixture is a single bar of lights.
A wonderful light that is fully submersible. A word of caution, this needs to be on a timer, because it will produce alot of algae quickly.
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I bought one of these about four months ago to try out, as the concept is really slick. Bought it from a local pet store for $5.00 less than on Amazon. The mount is perfect on a 55gl or smaller... just clips onto the inside of the plastic frame so that the light is out of sight, under and behind the frame... very nice. However, on a larger tank, with a thicker plastic frame, the clip mounts don't work because they're made for the thinner plastic. Only alternatives I see on a thick frame tank would be to glue under the frame edge with some dots of silicone, or just set on top like any other light.
I really like the blue night lights. Very pretty and eye-catching at night.
The light itself is somewhat comparable to a fluorescent hood, IF you use more than one. On a 55gl, it would take at least two... on a 125/150gl, minimum of three and probably six. That gets pretty expensive pretty fast.
The worst thing about mine though is that after two weeks, one of the three blue banks of LEDs stopped working, and after two months, one of the white banks stopped working. And that was with only occasional use, not submerged. I didn't use them daily. As with most LED device claims of mega-hour service, this one failed, not because of the LEDs themselves, but poor supporting electronics. I'm not investing in any more.
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So I bought this light for my 10 gal salt tank and it broke with in a month. It got water in it and shorted out. I reached out to Marine Land via email and got no reply after about a week and a half. I sent another email and said that if I didn't get a reply from that email I would be forced to go ahead with my review. After a week I still had no reply. So I gave the product one star on the marine land website. Two days later I got an email saying to mail the product to them and they would send me a new one, and a few days after that I got an email from someone who was obviously further up the chain and she mailed one out to me right away. She was super nice and I told her I would update my review. The new one is working fine (but its only been a week) so I went to the marine land website to update my review and it was gone. The only reviews there were 5star reviews. So Im not sure I trust anything on their website anymore. I will update this review if the new light flakes out.
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I have an Eclipse PFE3 Hood and the lamp base assembly stopped working. The lamps were always susceptible to water since the lens was not very tight. I could not find a replacement and after further research found out on the Marineland website that the PFE3 was recently discontinued. Marineland recommended this as an alternate solution to replace the lighting. It fits perfectly on the rim of the front of the tank and works great. I was somewhat skeptical about using LED's instead of bulbs but it definitely provides enough lighting, not quite as much as the bulbs but close enough. So far I am very happy with the product which I have had for about a month. I also very much like the blue light which is meant to simulate lighting at night.
FYI If you purchased your PFE3 within 2 years which is the warranty, call Marineland and they will send you an alternate hood and separate filter since the PFE is discontinued.
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definite requirment if buy the filter itself best to have extra then to have to run around looking for them or to have to have them overnighted if ordering online
