gwen_o_lyn
06-01-2006, 10:34 PM
I am starting a new thread with the Current USA discussion going on in another thread.... Here is what was taken from another thread:
if that satelite is made by current, stay away from it.
What's wrong with current USA? Both my fixtures are current usa and they work good. Well the first one was Custom Sea Life which are the same fixtures as Current.
I would be cautious of using aquatraders though. You get what u pay for.
when custom sealife was made in america, it was some of the best lights available. all the later custom sealife that was made in china has failed on me. in fact some of those later custom sealife started fires and caused lawsuits. the company bankrupted themselves and restarted with a new corporation. my lfs stopped selling current because of high rate of failure. that also goes for many other lfs here that i know of. some stores still carry them because the wholesale cost for them are incredibly cheap and the store can make a far greater margin than coralife. did you know that coralife is owned by a fortune 500 company that requires everything to be engineerered and than tested for ONE YEAR before releasing it for sale. that is one main reason why they cost more and are slower to the market with new products. the name current usa is borrowed from current china that is not the same company, but does provide the ballasts. was told by inside source that current usa buys the cheapest ballast made by current china. my local fish store sell plenty of replacement ballast for current, but never for coralife. and yes aquatrader is garbage...they even have issues with the firemarshall of houston.
interesting... that is one story I've never heard.
How did u hear about this?
i have become a good friend of the owner of my favorite lfs. he is extremely upstanding and refuse to sell any product regardless of profit margin if he does not believe in it. he also knows an good amount of people in the dry goods industry and since i hang-out a lot ,i hear a lot. there has been many other products that i read about in forum groups, but bite my tongue because i don't want to be a know-it-all....but TR is my home now so sometimes i want to speak out. i have surfed RC for years and not posted a single reply.
interesting... after many hours spent reading reef boards, I've never heard anything like this... not saying it's not true, but I would have to do further research.
Now Aquatraders is a completely different story! I can read all day long about complaints on that company. But at the same time, you also read about people that like them.
it is not me saying it, but rather me hearing insider talk and deciding whether to past it on or not. there are plenty of happy current users out there, and if they have good experiences with them, and the price is good for them, i wish them the best success. everyone needs to make their own judgement. i base mine on what i know, what i see, what i hear from manufactorers, what other hobbyist are saying, and finally what my trusted lfs tells me. if you doubt my sincerety in my comments, let me say that mike laskey-president of current usa taught me how to play craps, and i recently had sushi dinner with kevin richard-director of sales of ESU(coralife), Kent Marine, Oeanic, Allglass, and TFH PUBLISHING. coralife is BIG. their logo was recently add to the roster of sponsors of the Oakland A's.
I'm surprised this insider talk hasn't leaked out yet. There must be more info about this *somewhere* on the web.
gwen, i'm not the only one who know this. a lot of other people on the west coast knows this. the internet is very useful, but most lfs owners and manufacturers are not going to spend time talking about dark secrets online. the web is for commerce and hobby group like ours. sometimes the answer is in front of us, why did custom sealife-a well recognised brand suddenly go out of business to re-surface immediately under a different banner? my intention is not to thrash talk about anything but to point out what i think to be a safer option. a leading cause of house fires is due to electrical wiring or appliances...that is why i'm so vocal about this. there is a recent thread about current ballast failure started by victoria(?).
if that satelite is made by current, stay away from it.
What's wrong with current USA? Both my fixtures are current usa and they work good. Well the first one was Custom Sea Life which are the same fixtures as Current.
I would be cautious of using aquatraders though. You get what u pay for.
when custom sealife was made in america, it was some of the best lights available. all the later custom sealife that was made in china has failed on me. in fact some of those later custom sealife started fires and caused lawsuits. the company bankrupted themselves and restarted with a new corporation. my lfs stopped selling current because of high rate of failure. that also goes for many other lfs here that i know of. some stores still carry them because the wholesale cost for them are incredibly cheap and the store can make a far greater margin than coralife. did you know that coralife is owned by a fortune 500 company that requires everything to be engineerered and than tested for ONE YEAR before releasing it for sale. that is one main reason why they cost more and are slower to the market with new products. the name current usa is borrowed from current china that is not the same company, but does provide the ballasts. was told by inside source that current usa buys the cheapest ballast made by current china. my local fish store sell plenty of replacement ballast for current, but never for coralife. and yes aquatrader is garbage...they even have issues with the firemarshall of houston.
interesting... that is one story I've never heard.
How did u hear about this?
i have become a good friend of the owner of my favorite lfs. he is extremely upstanding and refuse to sell any product regardless of profit margin if he does not believe in it. he also knows an good amount of people in the dry goods industry and since i hang-out a lot ,i hear a lot. there has been many other products that i read about in forum groups, but bite my tongue because i don't want to be a know-it-all....but TR is my home now so sometimes i want to speak out. i have surfed RC for years and not posted a single reply.
interesting... after many hours spent reading reef boards, I've never heard anything like this... not saying it's not true, but I would have to do further research.
Now Aquatraders is a completely different story! I can read all day long about complaints on that company. But at the same time, you also read about people that like them.
it is not me saying it, but rather me hearing insider talk and deciding whether to past it on or not. there are plenty of happy current users out there, and if they have good experiences with them, and the price is good for them, i wish them the best success. everyone needs to make their own judgement. i base mine on what i know, what i see, what i hear from manufactorers, what other hobbyist are saying, and finally what my trusted lfs tells me. if you doubt my sincerety in my comments, let me say that mike laskey-president of current usa taught me how to play craps, and i recently had sushi dinner with kevin richard-director of sales of ESU(coralife), Kent Marine, Oeanic, Allglass, and TFH PUBLISHING. coralife is BIG. their logo was recently add to the roster of sponsors of the Oakland A's.
I'm surprised this insider talk hasn't leaked out yet. There must be more info about this *somewhere* on the web.
gwen, i'm not the only one who know this. a lot of other people on the west coast knows this. the internet is very useful, but most lfs owners and manufacturers are not going to spend time talking about dark secrets online. the web is for commerce and hobby group like ours. sometimes the answer is in front of us, why did custom sealife-a well recognised brand suddenly go out of business to re-surface immediately under a different banner? my intention is not to thrash talk about anything but to point out what i think to be a safer option. a leading cause of house fires is due to electrical wiring or appliances...that is why i'm so vocal about this. there is a recent thread about current ballast failure started by victoria(?).