Light Unit Failure/replacement.

I bought my tank 2nd hand £50, Juwel Rio, up until this morning no problems whatsoever but now the lights won't  work. No problem new bulbs, screw fix here I come, new bulbs don't work, ok change the fuse, no joy. Off to the LFS, not in stock and £130 to order so I have a look on google to see if I can get it cheaper. During the search I find that juwel light units suffer a very common problem, a problem with the ballast and new ballast is £25 and a relatively quick fix, so I thought I'd go the diy route and also start a feed on here to document my progress so if anyone else has a juwel tank and suffers a failure that you may have a bit of a reference and an example of what to do. Wish me luck.

Fully exposed ballast and wiring details, I'd forget which way round if I didn't document!

Good idea for a thread Adam. My Rio 125's ballast went when it was just out of warranty but I don't have the skills to replace the ballast. A lot of people do though so a pictorial how-to thread is a very good idea.

To be fair, it doesn't really look all that complicated, that said I am now waiting for the new ballast to arrive to see if it does work.
I think the hardest part is getting through the plastic and dealing with the hood of the tank having a big hole in the top.

I just punched a hole in it and pulled it off in bits with a pair of pliers, I'm not too fussed about the aesthetics of it, plus it'll leave it open for when it invariably happens again!