Looking for feedback: Owners of "Chinese LEDs" over their mixed reefs

Jump on nano-reefs.com a lot of people swear by reefbreeders fixtures

 

Have you checked out Steve's LEDs?

 

We have reefbreeder lights on our 210 and love them. We have had them since we set up this tank in June. Great coral growth and polyp extension. We just got our reefbreeder lights in for our 280 but are in the process of having a hanger built so do not have them hung yet. We were diehard MH/T5 fans but would never go back.

The evergrow fixture you linked to on e-bay is the same unit as the reefbreeder value fixture as evergrow makes the reefbreeder (and others) lights. $130 is a good buy for the buy it now price.

 

They look similar to the full spectrum LED panel I ordered from Coral Compulsion http://coralcompulsion.com/led/panel-fixtures/led-120w-full which I've been really happy with on my biocube.


Haven't heard of these LEDs you're looking at, but if they work as well as my current panel, but for about half the price, I think that's great! Only thing looks like I'd be missing is the built in timer.


I'll be following along to see if anyone else has experience with these...

 

I have the same evergrow lights as the ebay ones you linked to, I bought mine from the seller ocean revive. The guy I bought from conducted a group buy for his local club, the club liked the layout and had good results over several months so he ordered a bunch to sell on ebay. I paid 165 per unit.

They have been running on my tank since Feb with great results as far as growth and color. The only thing I don't like is it is hard to take good pictures under the blues, but they look good in person. They are very bright. Personally I did prefer the overall look of t-5s, but for the cost of these units, with no heat and no bulb replacements for a few years I felt the trade off was worth it. I have no regrets.

 

I have reefbreeders and they are amazing. I do caution getting a blue/white only fixture, violets really add to the "pop" of the tank and IMO are an important spectrum for growth that older fixtures lack. When you hear about the sterile effect for LEDs they are generally referring to blue/white only combos. That being said there are plenty of people that have blue/white only and are happy, but for almost the same price you can get full(er) spectrum from places like reefbreeders and the others you have listed.

 

Those Reef Radiance fixtures looks pretty with the 410 and 430 output and coming with optics.

 

Yes - the programmed timer is great. I have it set up so the blues come on earlier and turn off later than the other lights, giving the fish 30 minutes of "dawn" and "dusk" although that's totally unnecessary. A wall timer can work just as well though.. I just may switch my 75g over to LEDs sooner than I planned with this lower cost option.

 

Is the only thing your loosing with these over other LED's is the ability to control the lights ramp ability? I have Sol Blues and are not that impressed and have been looking to make a change. I have been debating if I really need to use the various ramp ups I've been using.

 

I think your list is about right with the differences, although I wouldn't put long term reliability as an unknown with the Chinese lights after all none of these units (cheap or expensive) have been around for a long time. The companies may have been, but not the components. Aside from effects which I have no desire for, the one thing the more expensive fixtures have is the ability to ramp up and down which I think is of real value peaking the lights midday. Of course reefbreeders does offer this in the other models that are still much cheaper.

It is really nice to have the 2 channels on dimmers so you can play with the colors. The value fixtures have a too many whites for my liking, but I just run them about 25-35% lower. One thing to be aware with LEDs, as you may well know, is that they shade badly. For mixed reef it can be nice as you can have low light corals 1” away from insane light, but SPS self-shade badly and the tissue can recede. If you keep this in mind when fragging it’s not a huge deal as you can trim the colony mindful of the light, but it is the biggest issue with LEDs from what I see. For example in my 65 it went from 1000 PAR to 7 in just 1” from the shade of an overhang.

I wish someone would build true LED reflectors where the LED shines into the mirrored reflector and back into the tank to provide better light mixing and uniform lighting like halides do. Think of the dentist’s office light where the bulb shines into the reflector and that is what is projected on you. I think LED headlights might work that way.

 

I know there are technical differences such as cree vs. Bridgelux etc. But from a user perspective, I concur with your statement above.

 

One other point in that while multiple vendors are sourcing the same basic Evervrow fixtures there are some differences. For example, reefbreeders come with a 2 year warranty and ocean revive with a 1more year warranty. The bulb configurations also vary between these 2 vendors. We have 4 RB value fixtures on our 210main in-wall, 1 OR value fixture over our frag section and 4 RB photon 32's for our 280meeting (waiting to be mounted).