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ADA barn find

Kalum

Member
Joined
8 Jan 2018
Messages
1,090
Location
Scotland
Late night online browsing can be a good and a bad thing, randomly had a look for tanks up for sale around my local area and an ad popped up which had only been on for 20min and was only 30 miles away, messaged and 14 hours later I'm back with my impulse buy.....

More to follow

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ADA garden stand with old logo

More to come

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Plus ADA rack

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ADA Solar 1 and ADA arm stand

Unfortunately standard ballast not present and 3rd party ballast included (works fine but need to check specs with someone electrically minded)

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Tank included ;) just posting as I build and clean

ADA 75p, only down side is there are quite a lot of scratches in the lower 1/4 of the glass all round, will test fill and see how bad it looks and if bad I'll consider looking into polishing out if possible

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Cant be the right light arm for the stand as well as it sits off to the side

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Triangular scape with sand where the light doesn't quite reach ;)

For every problem there is a solution...

Tbh I've no idea what my plans are for this, total impulse buy with no thought whatsoever apart from I couldn't not buy it

Nice mate can I ask how much

Let's just say it was worth my journey ;)
 
So now its decision time
  • Do I use this as my buce growing tank
  • Replace my main aqua one optiwhite with twinstar light (just larger than 60p) with this as my main tank in the living room
  • Turn it into a betta breeding tank.....been toying with this idea but realistically dont have the time or additional tanks for splitting the males down the line
  • Or something else.....
The scratches and open stand give me concerns about having it as a centre piece tank, but having the bigger tank as a grow out tank just seems a bit backwards...

Need to read up more about the solar 1 light as well as I'm not sure of its pros and cons since its old tech compared to say my twinstar, so that would be a potential extra cost if I had it as my main tank
 
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Just saw this thread. Really nice! :)

Look at George farmer YouTube tour of Adams ADA studio in Poland. Loads of ADA Solar lights.

Really cool looking set up. I agree with Tim, you won’t notice the scratches when filled. Correct the arm and happy days!
 
Ps.

Looking at the pic again you may even be able to diy an extension on the light stand quite quite cheaply and could look good.
 
Cheers @Siege I'll have a look, will be good to find out what the general opinion of it is

I love the slightly industrial yet modern look of it even though it's an old design, just a bit different

I've been thinking along those lines as well and considering putting a slightly bigger pipe as a sleeve around the existing one to extend it say another 20cm and just silicon it in place
 
Nice!! An ADA classic. Keep it, this is definitively going to be a collectable.. :)

I've been thinking along those lines as well and considering putting a slightly bigger pipe as a sleeve around the existing one to extend it say another 20cm and just silicon it in place

I googled ADA solar light arm.. Found something intersting.. It aint to short maybe, first you should turn the clamps 180° over so they are on the inside of the stand leg..

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Than could it be that the piece you placed vertical now is a tad longer and atended to be the horizontal one?.. :)
 
Hope Marcel’s idea is right on
(though I suspect it’s the arm for a 60P rather than the 75P)

Awesome find :D

Consider replacing the bulb - metal halide spectrum degrades fairly quickly and (at least) annual change is typical
Advanced Aquarist has good technical lighting analysis and review articles (though MH will be mostly in archives I suspect)
 
Nice!! An ADA classic. Keep it, this is definitively going to be a collectable.. :)



I googled ADA solar light arm.. Found something intersting.. It aint to short maybe, first you should turn the clamps 180° over so they are on the inside of the stand leg..

garden-state.jpg


Than could it be that the piece you placed vertical now is a tad longer and atended to be the horizontal one?.. :)

Great find and something I should have taken notice of before, I've mounted the clamps upside down so when setting it up I did it to what made sense with the orientation they were in, flipping them the correct way and rotating to the back makes a much bigger difference than I was expecting and it's very nearly centre now :clap:

It is pretty much perfect if the cable is right af the end of the arm so I think I'll out an end stop so I can run it like that as it gives me the fear to have it that close to the end without

Thanks @zozo ;)
 
Hope Marcel’s idea is right on
(though I suspect it’s the arm for a 60P rather than the 75P)

Awesome find :D

Consider replacing the bulb - metal halide spectrum degrades fairly quickly and (at least) annual change is typical
Advanced Aquarist has good technical lighting analysis and review articles (though MH will be mostly in archives I suspect)

Thanks @alto I'll have a look into it all, it's old tech now but am interested to see the colour rendition in comparison to say my twinstar then I'll make a decision going forward, no matter what I do I'll be aiming for low/medium light, high light tanks arent for me

The ADA lamp replacements are extortionate (£70) so I'll try and find an alternative if I like this light and keep it
 
Some great info from everyone and it's much appreciated, I'll be breaking out the DA polisher once my cutting compound arrives this week
 
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