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Unread 07/10/2018, 05:43 AM   #337
Ron Reefman
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Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Cape Coral, FL
Posts: 10,431
Let me start with a simple statement, over a 200g tank, any led fixture (or enough led fixtures) that are 3 watts or more will grow healthy coral. Even the underpowered 0.5 watt Current Orbit fixture works over shallow tanks (16" or less).

From there it's more up to what you want than about whether the fixture will grow coral or not. Assuming a 5' or 6' long tank, 3 or 4 Mars Aqua fixtures (Chinese black boxes) would be more than enough to do the job well and would only cost $300 to $400. You get a mix of leds, 2 channels (mostly white and mostly blue) and built-in dimmers. At the opposite end of the spectrum would be 2 Pacific Sun hybrid led/t5 fixtures with all the bells and whistles at $2000+. And there is a whole world of variation in between.

How much better would a Pacific Sun or Eco Tech Radion grow coral than a Mars Aqua? IMHO, very, very little. But how much more control would you as the user have over the light? A lot! And how much better made would the high end fixture be? Again IMHO, it would be better made, and probably some better materials used, but how much that extra quality worth to you? Especially in a fixture you will probably upgrade in 5 years. I can tell you that your coral really doesn't care. And in 5 years your fixture will seem old and there may be some new features you might be interested in having. And in 10 years I can almost guarantee that you won't still be using whatever led fixture you buy now. I've been using leds for about 8 years now and I've had 2 long term fixtures, 5yrs and 2+yrs (and still using) over my main tanks and a variety of other fixtures (6 different brands over 3 other tanks). If you offered me the led fixture I bought in 2010 for free if I'd use them to replace any of the fixtures I use now, I wouldn't even consider it. Even though I paid $800 total for two of the fixture 8 years ago! Fixtures have improved that much. However, the improvements have slowed down as years go by and now we are almost down to feature improvements or marketing gimmicks that really mean very little to the coral or to the user.

So back to the questions you need to ask yourself:(these are in no particular order)
1) Budget - $300 absolute minimum to over $2500
2) Color Control - 2 channels or more, most midrange cost & higher end fixtures have 6
3) Intensity Control - 2 basic dimmers and no timers, 2 built-in digital dimmers and 2 timers, sunrise/sunset control over all 6 channels, ability to connect by wifi to a remote system and model the light from a real reef.
4) Looks - Basic black box, slimmer more modern looking case, complete disregard because nobody will see them in a canopy or built into the ceiling.
5) Materials Quality - Steel case vs plastic vs aluminum. Temperature control by fans only, a heatsink that is just a sheet of aluminum plus fans or a real finned aluminum heat sink and fans.
6) LEDs - Cheap bridgelux & epistar, more expensive Cree, Semi, OSRAM and others, or even led chips with many leds built into a tiny board.
7) Customer Service - Virtually none from ebay cheap end to retailers who have websites, phone numbers and even sponsor forums at websites like this.

OK, and here is what I wanted and what I bought: I want the best value. In other words good quality (not crazy high end) and good control so I can play with the color and timing. So I use and would recommend Reef Breeders Photon V2+ fixtures. You would want two 32" fixtures for a 6' tank and the total cost would be about $1000 or if it's a 5' tank, a single 50" fixture for $675 (this is what I had over my 5' tank).

If you don't care about having all the control and/or you budget is smaller, let me know and we can talk about all the fixtures between the Mars Aqua and the Reef Breeders Photon V2+. (try post #231 in this thread for some useful information).


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