Sean W.
Active Member
Hi Everyone,
I am working on building my new 90 gallon LPS/Softie tank and I wanted to add a refugium to my sump. I was doing a lot of research and after watching the BRS Investigates series on refugiums, it was clear that the main take away is more light equals more better.
With that in mind I wanted to go with the very brightest light I could find that would fit over the pretty limited size of the Fuge section built into my Fiji Cube 20 sump. I wanted to get the Kessil H380, but between them being $300 + tax and shipping and being out of stock most places, I started looking for an alternative.
This is when I came across this light on Amazon, $25 with prime shipping next day delivery. It says it was 300Watts and I was like, holy crap, that is going to be so bright, I would need to put a dimmer on it. After reading the description more I guess it's the equivalent of a 300W metal halide, as it the light it's self is only 50W. Still a little under powered compared to the H380 which is 90W at max brightness, but I figured for less than 1/10 the price, this thing gets me in the ballpark.
But for $25, how good could it really be...
I received the light today and it seems to be very high quality construction. It's very heavy and the lens feels great. All the hardware is nice, the cord is great and over all the unit just feels well constructed, no red flags here.
It's a simple plug in and it turns on, unplug and it turns off. No on/off switch or dimmer. A timer/smart outlet would be perfect for this. The fan is a bit noisy, sounds like it's probably spinning at around 2,000rpm, maybe a little less. I plan on running this at night while I'm sleeping, so I'm really not worried about the noise. If you wanted to I'm sure you could swap out the fan for a Noctua fan that would be much quieter.
The lens does a great job of focusing the beam, but like I said the fuge section in my sump is so small, I am going to 3D print a shade and line it with metal tape to focus the beam into the fuge to limit the light spill into the rest of the sump that much more. The light comes with hanging mounting hardware, probably everything you would need to hang it in your stand.
This uses a COB style LED, which is large diode made up of smaller diodes. In this pic you can make out all the individual diodes. The lens then focuses all the light they produce into a fine spot.
I hooked it up to my watt meter and it looks like it's pulling near the 50watt rating.
At the height I am going to be mounting it over my fuge (before building the reflector shade) I am getting a little over 300par. I got this number by using an app on my phone to measure the lumens/lux and dividing that number by 70: 22,000 / 70 = 314par. This isn't a sure fire way of measuring par, but it gets you in the ball park. I used this trick to setup lighting for my hightech planted tanks back in the day and it never let me down. Take these par numbers with a grain of salt, but I think it's close.
As you can see from the pictures I am still setting up my tank and it will probably be some time before I can actually test it's performance as an actual refugium light, but I think this is a great start. I also can't speak to it's longevity aside from the observation that it feels very well made.
If you're looking for a fuge light, I say give this one a shot!
Thanks for reading. Let me know if you have any questions I can answer.
-Sean
I am working on building my new 90 gallon LPS/Softie tank and I wanted to add a refugium to my sump. I was doing a lot of research and after watching the BRS Investigates series on refugiums, it was clear that the main take away is more light equals more better.
With that in mind I wanted to go with the very brightest light I could find that would fit over the pretty limited size of the Fuge section built into my Fiji Cube 20 sump. I wanted to get the Kessil H380, but between them being $300 + tax and shipping and being out of stock most places, I started looking for an alternative.
This is when I came across this light on Amazon, $25 with prime shipping next day delivery. It says it was 300Watts and I was like, holy crap, that is going to be so bright, I would need to put a dimmer on it. After reading the description more I guess it's the equivalent of a 300W metal halide, as it the light it's self is only 50W. Still a little under powered compared to the H380 which is 90W at max brightness, but I figured for less than 1/10 the price, this thing gets me in the ballpark.
But for $25, how good could it really be...
I received the light today and it seems to be very high quality construction. It's very heavy and the lens feels great. All the hardware is nice, the cord is great and over all the unit just feels well constructed, no red flags here.
It's a simple plug in and it turns on, unplug and it turns off. No on/off switch or dimmer. A timer/smart outlet would be perfect for this. The fan is a bit noisy, sounds like it's probably spinning at around 2,000rpm, maybe a little less. I plan on running this at night while I'm sleeping, so I'm really not worried about the noise. If you wanted to I'm sure you could swap out the fan for a Noctua fan that would be much quieter.
The lens does a great job of focusing the beam, but like I said the fuge section in my sump is so small, I am going to 3D print a shade and line it with metal tape to focus the beam into the fuge to limit the light spill into the rest of the sump that much more. The light comes with hanging mounting hardware, probably everything you would need to hang it in your stand.
This uses a COB style LED, which is large diode made up of smaller diodes. In this pic you can make out all the individual diodes. The lens then focuses all the light they produce into a fine spot.
I hooked it up to my watt meter and it looks like it's pulling near the 50watt rating.
At the height I am going to be mounting it over my fuge (before building the reflector shade) I am getting a little over 300par. I got this number by using an app on my phone to measure the lumens/lux and dividing that number by 70: 22,000 / 70 = 314par. This isn't a sure fire way of measuring par, but it gets you in the ball park. I used this trick to setup lighting for my hightech planted tanks back in the day and it never let me down. Take these par numbers with a grain of salt, but I think it's close.
As you can see from the pictures I am still setting up my tank and it will probably be some time before I can actually test it's performance as an actual refugium light, but I think this is a great start. I also can't speak to it's longevity aside from the observation that it feels very well made.
If you're looking for a fuge light, I say give this one a shot!
Thanks for reading. Let me know if you have any questions I can answer.
-Sean
