Reef Discussion

roamin

Member
Nov 6, 2012
150
57
i will try and see what i can do, i suck at reviews, never know what to say lol. its a light, its bloody bright if you want it to be. it has multiple colors and does some funky sunrise sunset shit hahaha.

i will try and get something up. i have never used the video feature on the 600d canon so maybe nows the time.
 

Cosby

Member
May 14, 2013
435
297
@MTG or @roamin You may be the person(s) to ask here, and I thought I'd keep it in this thread, anyway.....

I'm looking at a 4ft or 5ft Cade set up. I have little idea of what LED lights are available for these sized tanks, and what exactly the differences between LED's.

After visiting Bunarong today and seeing the illumagic I would love to get one of those, but I am of course working to a budget, and although I do have the coin to back it up, I'm not sure if the $1500 spend is really a necessity if I want a light that has similar programmable features.

Could someone give me an idea as to what I should be looking for, and what to watch out for?
 

MTG

Moderator
Jul 10, 2011
10,664
2,149
Gold Coast
@MTG or @roamin You may be the person(s) to ask here, and I thought I'd keep it in this thread, anyway.....

I'm looking at a 4ft or 5ft Cade set up. I have little idea of what LED lights are available for these sized tanks, and what exactly the differences between LED's.

After visiting Bunarong today and seeing the illumagic I would love to get one of those, but I am of course working to a budget, and although I do have the coin to back it up, I'm not sure if the $1500 spend is really a necessity if I want a light that has similar programmable features.

Could someone give me an idea as to what I should be looking for, and what to watch out for?
this is my opinion, a light is one of the most important harware parts of the marine aquarium behind flow, do you really want to risk your coral on such a small purchase? if you buy a good product you will have reliablity and performance to show. personaly i wouldnt stray from any of the name brands, eg illumagic, ATI, GHL,ecotech,maxspec .ive had three illumagics now and they have all been flawless, i have one illumagic that was the first ever generation over my sisters tank around 5 years old, hasnt skipped a beat and not one MM of rust on the unit (excluding the screws ;) )
 

Cosby

Member
May 14, 2013
435
297
this is my opinion, a light is one of the most important harware parts of the marine aquarium behind flow, do you really want to risk your coral on such a small purchase? if you buy a good product you will have reliablity and performance to show. personaly i wouldnt stray from any of the name brands, eg illumagic, ATI, GHL,ecotech,maxspec .ive had three illumagics now and they have all been flawless, i have one illumagic that was the first ever generation over my sisters tank around 5 years old, hasnt skipped a beat and not one MM of rust on the unit (excluding the screws ;) )
This is what I wanted to hear. illumagic, all the way.

It probably helps that I'm not spending my own money. :)
 

roamin

Member
Nov 6, 2012
150
57
this is my opinion, a light is one of the most important harware parts of the marine aquarium behind flow, do you really want to risk your coral on such a small purchase?

to most people a $1500 led light is not a small purchase! wait till you are paying off your own house with a mortgage, bills, food, insurance, car payments and the list goes on. its not a small fee trust me!


if you buy a good product you will have reliablity and performance to show. personaly i wouldnt stray from any of the name brands, eg illumagic, ATI, GHL,ecotech,maxspec .ive had three illumagics now and they have all been flawless, i have one illumagic that was the first ever generation over my sisters tank around 5 years old, hasnt skipped a beat and not one MM of rust on the unit (excluding the screws ;) )
thats usually a good rule to follow, but until you prove the it2080 are no good than you need to think twice about this statement. there is literally many many many threads on these leds if you allow yourself to search outside of australian forums. theres many people who are very happy with these, theres one person who actually replaced his ecotech radions with these leds in america and shows multiple photo's why. theres many threads on these for par metering as well showing they have excellent par readings. theres other threads showing one fella who has shown photos of his sps growing over a few weeks with these lights as well.

so before you sit in your chair and flog them. how about you jump on the net, search some forums and show links to people who say they are shit to back yourself up. dont spread rumors saying somethings shit when you actually have not used them or actually spent some quality time researching them

its literally an each to there own, but dont claim something are shit until you can prove that there no good.

here is a small review someone did at reef central. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2274279

also the thing is with leds is there all different even if you run the same fancy brand as someone else, as everyone sets there light intensities different to the next person, yet they all seem to still be happy with there light. if we both have radions and i run them at 55% and you run them at 88% than in reality we both run different lighting. different pars and so on. yet both tanks still grow and mature perfectly fine, so who is wrong, me at 55% or you at 88%? no one is wrong, they both work so who cares!

all i can say to everyone is READ!!!! dont listen to me or to mtg. do what i did, research for weeks! i did. i didn't want to buy cheap shit lights that dont work. so i didn't. but dont take my word for it. just google "reef breeder photon" as these are what the leds are called in america.
 

MTG

Moderator
Jul 10, 2011
10,664
2,149
Gold Coast
i never said they were not good i said why risk it, ive been burned before from cheaper lights that everyone raved about and gave awesome reviews. oh and i went to the "best" tank builder in qld based on reviews and guess what? he F%$#@# my brand new tank up further then i thought anyone could, to me reviews don't hold ground especially when the user came from a cheap unit and had only had the unit for a couple of days while doing the reviews. im basing my opinion on all my reefer friends that i often see and see the progress of their systems and from using the units through friends.

any lights will esentialy work. hell a second hand 40$ t5 unit will grow and keep coral looking ok, your paying for the reliability controlability and the fact that quality components have been used and tested. ive seen so many cheap units that would give insurance company's a heart attack the level of dodgyness is insane, fire waiting to happen!. ive actually seen these units in action now i look at the pics, a friend imported a few to see if they were worthwhile to distribute.
 

roamin

Member
Nov 6, 2012
150
57
build quality is excellent in these and you would know this if you have seen them, same with control, you have 2 seperate channels to control and can control them from 0 - 100 in increments of 1, than you can program each channel in 30 minute increments so you can have a total of 48 different points of lighting in one day.

also another thread here http://www.3reef.com/forums/reef-breeders/radion-pro-vs-reefbreeders-32-a-143552-5.html which i just found.

again a quick google can show so much. i too had cheap t5 and tried to get away from them as quick as i could. stinking thing it was. still have it at home to remind me what to never do again. oh and these light are electrically CE approved. so there not some dodgy shit from the backyard of some dudes house.

oh and to top it off you seriously cant beat there warranty. if you lose a driver or led, there happy to send you a replacement part and let you install it yourself and still keep your warranty from there. not many companies would allow that, they would want you to send the light back and have there team assess it and so on. get a hold of reef breeders on the reef central forums and they will fix you up quicker than you realise.
 

aussieant32

Team Leader
Feb 19, 2012
3,337
914
Sutherland, Australia
biggest problem with LED's is everyone seems to think they are experts, when really they are not. So they say one light is great because it has X amount of Y chips etc etc.

One of the most popular LED's on the market has some of the most over clocked chips out there, meaning that in 12 months you may as well have got the $40 off eBay, some of the lower priced run lower grade chips but at the right levels so they will be as bright now as they are in 5 years.

Componantly IMO Illumagic and Mitras are the 2 best, the gear they run is very fairly priced. There is another unit that has great quality as well, but is way too expensive for what it is.
 

roamin

Member
Nov 6, 2012
150
57
Do you have any specs on the chips they are running? Only thing I can find is them slapping 'Bridgelux' over everything but not saying what actual chips they are using?
same as what i am pretty much finding myself, im positive i have seen it somewhere before where someone states what they were but i cant find it at the moment.
 

roamin

Member
Nov 6, 2012
150
57
biggest problem with LED's is everyone seems to think they are experts, when really they are not.
that is my point exactly. no one knows the perfect setup, or we would all have it. as i said before, 2 ppl run the same light, both at different percentages, both have maturing tanks. than whats the issue? does your coral thrive and fish do the happy swim? than sweet jobs done. its that simple.

i personally couldn't care if i shing tung tong leds or t5 or mh, as long as my tank is happy and everything in the tank is happy. i dont care, if there was stuff dieing. i would be throwing the lights out the window as fast as i could. there's more to led's than just the color or the par reading A LOT more. but i have no idea, hence why i googled for weeks to see what everyone elses opinion of them are. what the support from the company is like and so on.
 

aussieant32

Team Leader
Feb 19, 2012
3,337
914
Sutherland, Australia
I think all you need to look at is the unit. Forget the ramping and what other people are doing etc. Waste of time.

If you buy a unit that is running at the right level for the chips installed you are going to have a light that can sustain the lighting levels for a much longer period of time.

I fully understand that colour and par is not the be all and end all, what is important is that you understand how it produces these and how long it can do it for. The better scenario would be to get the right lights, than a cheap on you need to throw out
 

Riaan_Tas

Member
Jan 6, 2012
204
69
Parkwood Qld
wow .... did not think an LED question can cause such a stir .... just asked opinions got it there for helped me make a decision ....
Why do people have to get so defensive about opinions ... if it were facts and they were wrong ok but not opinions ..ffs
 

aussieant32

Team Leader
Feb 19, 2012
3,337
914
Sutherland, Australia
wow .... did not think an LED question can cause such a stir .... just asked opinions got it there for helped me make a decision ....
Why do people have to get so defensive about opinions ... if it were facts and they were wrong ok but not opinions ..ffs
noone is getting defensive, people just having their opinion and trying to provide some actual information on the unit.

Pretty out of line comment in my opinion.
 

roamin

Member
Nov 6, 2012
150
57
I think all you need to look at is the unit. Forget the ramping and what other people are doing etc. Waste of time.

If you buy a unit that is running at the right level for the chips installed you are going to have a light that can sustain the lighting levels for a much longer period of time.

I fully understand that colour and par is not the be all and end all, what is important is that you understand how it produces these and how long it can do it for. The better scenario would be to get the right lights, than a cheap on you need to throw out
i understand what you are saying, you need to understand i am also agreeing with you lol.

wow .... did not think an LED question can cause such a stir .... just asked opinions got it there for helped me make a decision ....
Why do people have to get so defensive about opinions ... if it were facts and they were wrong ok but not opinions ..ffs
wow that escalated quickly hahahaha

no one is defensive. i couldnt care what bob or jill or who ever use on there tank. everyone has valid points, as i said, dont take my word for it or mtg or anyone in particular, read reviews, look at what other people have to to say from a neutral point of view. also look at your budget and all these other things. theres no wrong light when all lights mentioned work on marine aquariums and grow sps and so on.

but its a known fact from the get go in this thread cree are better than bridgelux, hence why all major brands run cree. but they cost a lot more, hence back to the budget conversation.

no matter what light you get, theres always a hater, ppl love illumi's others love radions and so on. but work out what you want at what budget and get what you like. some say the reef breeders look shit and thats there reasoning for spending another $1000 more to get a better looking light.

this is how the world goes around though, different opinions. if everyone had the same opinion than you wouldnt even ask what lights better!
 

roamin

Member
Nov 6, 2012
150
57
Pretty out of line comment in my opinion.
couldnt agree more.

im thinking someone didn't wake up on the right side of the bed this morning. seems very :rage

ps: @aussieant32 i asked on reefcentral for a spec sheet on these led's, lets see what response we get.

got a response already, not the best one either. but at least there quick to respond. quickest response i have had from any company. if it were telstra i would still be on hold lol

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2295980