PeteFree.comAquaticLife dual lamp T5 HO Marquis — freshwater aquarium light fixture — a review
© 2018 Peter Free
04 September 2018
Low quality components and irritating design . . .
. . . may outweigh this aquarium light's low price.
I have used a 24 inch AquaticLife Marquis freshwater aquarium light for almost a year. Over that time, its annoyances put it on my "not again" list.
List of shortcomings
Nasty control panel
The placement and operation of the lamp's control panel is unideal. It is located on one end, rather than on top. It is small and has no internal light.
If your aquarium is located, as most are, in a dim corner of a room, most people will have trouble seeing the readout. I need a magnifier with built-in illumination to see the readout's small digits and even tinier program lettering.
Second, three overly small push buttons operate the panel. These are marked with a square, a triangle and an x. You have to memorize what each does. In proper sequence, they set local time, as well as the light's on and off periods.
Two of the buttons have to be pressed simultaneously, during many of the programming steps. People with medium to large fingers may have trouble depressing them together. If you are not exact in your timing, one of the buttons will trip first, doing something other than what you wished.
Setting errors were frequent for me. Each time, I had to cycle through an entire 24 hour period.
Making the button situation worse, is the fact that the overlay label for each is made of soft, clear laminate. If you use fingernails to activate the buttons — as someone with large fingers will probably have to do — the laminate soon gets so chopped up, that you cannot read which button is which.
Third, menu settings revert to their factory defaults, whenever the cord is unplugged or the home power goes off. That means, in most places and for most aquarium hobbyists, one has to go through the setting procedure numerous times during the course of a year.
Not so good for aquariums with covers
The Marquis has two width-adjustable legs. These are designed to fit onto the aquarium's side rims.
If your aquarium has a cover, the Marquis' legs' feet will sit (at least partially) on it. Which means that, if you have to remove the cover to feed the aquarium occupants, the Marquis becomes mildly displaced. Occasionally, this means that the Marquis slips completely off one side of the aquarium. You will have to catch it to prevent it from falling.
Low quality components
The bulb sockets on my sample of this light are pretty close to being trash.
The bulbs themselves are 2-pin T5 fluorescents. These are supposed to fit into the two receptacle sockets placed at each end of the lamp.
The Marquis arrives with both bulbs installed, but covered with circular foam shipping pads, as well as see-through plastic sleeves. These have to be removed before use. Removal and reinsertion means that you may have to deal with the following quality issue at least once.
The sockets are finicky. Of the four on my sample — two each for each bulb — only one worked properly. Two others were catchy and frequently prevented the bulbs from being reinserted and properly rotated to the locked position. The fourth always required a small screwdriver and innumerable efforts just to get it to turn to the proper position, so that one could insert (or turn) the bulb. These three sockets were so glitchy, that I had to disassemble the light's end plates to diagnose what was wrong with them and overcome that.
Also irritating were the sockets' imprecise tolerances. Even after one gets the vertical slots in the sockets to accept each bulbs' end pins, you still have to obtain exactly the correct high-low vertical alignment for the bulb to seat and lock properly. Properly constructed sockets do not allow this kind of slop.
There is also the added annoyance contributed by the too-close placement of the fluorescent bulbs. The lamps are not far enough apart, even for small hands to grab. Even my wife's demure hands and fingers did not have enough room to strongly grasp and turn each bulb.
Given the sockets' locking-in foibles, not being able to produce sufficient rotational force to overcome their resistance repeatedly extended the patience-testing installation process.
Visibly sloppy component assembly
The Marquis' light diffuser is a clear piece of plastic covered with stick-on white plastic film. My sample had two very prominent, crosswise tunneled ripples in it.
Admittedly, when the Marquis is installed on the aquarium, the diffuser ripples are not visible — unless one crouches down and looks up.
The moral? — AquaticLife's Marquis freshwater aquarium lamp works well enough — but
My sample of the AquaticLife product fell on the wrong side of the "reasonable quality to price" threshold. I would not buy another Marquis.