My Review of the Lominie Pixie 30 Reef Light

[Karen00]

Also known as: Lumini Pixie 30 Reef Light
Tank: 5g pico
The short answer: Don't waste your money. It's doubtful this light will grow hard to keep corals but will possibly grow the easy ones (see my summation).

Out of 10 stars:
Customer Support:

• Speed of reply: 10
• Quality of reply: 1

Material Quality:

• Materials: 7
• Quality of construction: 4

Functionality: 3
Design: 8

After killing a couple corals with the stock light that came with the Top Fin tank I went ahead and purchased this Chinese made light after doing a fair bit of research on budget reef lights finally settling on this one. The specs of this light sounded fairly decent and because my tank is just a 5g I didn't need a light with an overwhelming amount of par.

In the box:

• Light head.
• RF Remote control programmed with 5 pre-programmed channels: CH1: 6 blues, CH2: 6 whites, CH3: 3 blue, 2 royal blue, 1 violet, CH4: 1 green, 1 red, 4 white, CH5: All on. These can be summed/brightened in 10% increments. Has preset timer settings but I think you can only do one channel so no switching channels throughout the day.
• Controller for the RF remote.
• Mounting arm: At its shortest the light head is approx. 6-½" above the top rim of the tank and approx. 8-½" at full extension. (Note: A hanging kit is featured but the light no longer comes with it). I decided to measure from the rim of the tank instead of the water surface because everyone keeps their tank filled to different levels.
• Seven screws.
• Power cable.
• Instructions.
• Optional purchase: WiFi controller RGBW (this should have been a red flag, details further down). The app used with this is Magic Home Pro (free) for strip lighting (this also should have been a red flag, details further down).

Details:
Instructions: Useless.

Design:
It's a stylish looking light that sits high enough (even at its lowest mounting point) so it doesn't get in the way of doing tank maintenance, feeding, etc.

Light head (image attached):

• 30w, COB (Chip on Board) style.
• Dimensions of light head: 4" x 4".
• Features: 6 white, 7 blue, 8 royal blue, 1 violet, 1 red (not UV) and 1 green. At first glance this has a decent set of LEDs and is what drew me to it. Caveat: I learned from a fellow member that true reef lights are tuned to the required nm for each light (ex: 440-450nm for royal blue). I have no idea if these LEDs are proper reef tuned LEDs. Maybe they aren't which could play a part in the cheaper price (my speculation).

PAR:
The PAR map looks decent but there is no information if this was performed in the air or in the water. The readings must have been taken with the light suspended using the now defunct hanging kit because they show 18" above the water. The supplied mounting arm extends only to about 8-½".

RF remote and controller:

• Comes with five pre-programmed channels: CH1: 6 blues, CH2: 6 whites, CH3: 3 blue, 2 royal blue, 1 violet, CH4: 1 green, 1 red, 4 white, CH5: All on.
• All channels can be dimmed/brightened in 10% increments. I am not sure if the dimming/brighten feature behaves the same way as the app where you are actually changing the colour.
• Has six preset timer settings: 2H, 8H, 10H, 12H, 16H, 18H but I think you can only do one channel so no switching channels throughout the day. There doesn't seem to be a way to set the time of day. I can only assume you hit one of the buttons and it will stay on for that length of time then shuts off. I assume this has to be done manually each day.
• The RF remote controller is what connects the remote to the light head via RF. It attaches to the power cord. It has a few function buttons on it to presumably control the light in case the actual remote is lost or broken.

Colour:
Black and silver. I don't think it comes in white.

Materials:
Metal and plastic.

Construction:
There seems to be issues with quality control in the manufacturing process. One of the screw holes that secures the light head to the mounting arm isn't deep enough so the screw won't tighten to its fullest depth and the second screw isn't enough on its own to keep the light head stable and in position. See customer support below for my interaction with them. I can probably find a shorter screw, I just haven't bothered yet.

Optional Magic Home Pro app and controller:

• The instructions are vague but this app was never meant to do anything complex.
• No access to the royal blue and violet LEDs only RGBW.
• As mentioned the controller pairs with the Magic Home Pro app which is meant for strip lighting so only supports RGBW.
• No ability to dim/brighten while holding the RGBW colour settings. Ex: 0,0,255 is full blue. When you try to dim it the colour decreases such as 0,0,200. This also applies to custom profiles.
• No ability to do acclimation mode.
• No ability to do sunrise/sunset.
• Seems to lose customized profiles quite often which is enough to make me hate this app especially when the key to a reef tank is stability. It seems to revert to white light. Reviewing timer profile settings also seems to cause it to revert to white.
• When doing custom profiles there is no way to save white light as part of the mix, however you can save white if you do timer profiles. Timer profiles are limited to on/off so there is no blending effect as the profiles change throughout the day.
• There are pre-programmed lighting profiles but none are good for reefing.

Customer service:
They are quick to reply but hopeless to deal with. When I informed them (with a picture) of the issue with the screw not fitting the light head there first response was "all the screws are custom for each hole so to try each one.". Ridiculous, they aren't customized for each hole. When I told them this their reply was to shoot a video of me assembling it. Really?! Ridiculous. I let this go. My next interaction was to get help with the app figuring I was missing something in trying to access the royal blue and violet LEDs. Their reply was so ridiculous you can tell the customer service people know nothing about reefs and reef lighting. I asked if I could have my message forwarded to the developers. I never heard back. I still have to rate this light on Amazon.

To sum up:
If you absolutely need a budget light the Lominie Pixie 30 isn't bad if you use the remote. Don't waste your money on the controller, you lose control instead of improving it. There is no way to customize the pre-programmed channels on the remote but at least you have access to all of the LEDs. If they'd gone the extra step of building their own app and controller this would be a great light (assuming the LEDs are proper reef LEDs) although I can only assume had they done this the cost would probably be close to rhat of an AI Prime 16HD.
Caveat: I doubt this will grow hard to keep corals and given this light has been up for only a couple weeks it remains to be seen how easier corals do. So far my photosynthetic gorg and xenia seem relatively happy. I will update this thread after the light has been in use longer however I might have an AI Prime 16HD by then. I will also update this with answers to questions that are asked if I missed referencing aspects of the light.

 

[shwareefer]

There's Lominie and there's Lumini. I guess they rip each other off too, lol.

 

[Karen00]

There's Lominie and there's Lumini. I guess they rip each other off too, lol.

Might be the same company because their support email is lumini-led@ on the instructions. LOL I also positive I saw lumini on some of the pages for this light but you're right that they could be knocking off their own products now. Haha.

 

[LiveFreeAndReef]

I may have missed it in your post, but how much did the light cost?

 

[Karen00]

I may have missed it in your post, but how much did the light cost?

Thanks. I guess I should've added that converted to US because it was more here in Canada. That's why I left it out. It was Canadian $87 +$16 for the controller. I will add that.

 

[fishythingsouthwest]

I've had a far different experience with this light, ive had it for about a year now. I've grown sps, lps and softies with no issues and good growth on everything. Not a light for everyone thats for sure though, but decent for a nano for the price

 

[FishyFishFish]

Obvious question but are both of the screws the same length?

 

[Karen00]

I just set it up about 3 weeks ago so can't speak to overall growth. I mentioned I would provide an update if I haven't swapped it out for something else. What is horrendous is the app. It doesn't keep any of my timer settings and of course you lose the violet and royal blue channels with the app which is why I mentioned it's probably better to stick to the remote although then you lose automatic on/off which means having to buy a separate timer. You also can't do an acclimation setting nor the other stuff like sunrise, sunset, moonlight, etc. If they had developed a proper reef app or integrated with a proper reef app it probably would be a decent light but it's also unknown whether the LEDs are actually at the proper spectrum (ex: 450nm) as opposed to just red, blue, dark blue, green, purple LEDs. I would not have purchased it had I known of these limitations.

 

[Karen00]

Obvious question but are both of the screws the same length?

Yep. That was the first thing I checked. LOL

 

[Karen00]

@fishythingsouthwest Can you let me know the size of your tank and if you're using the app or the remote and if you're using the remote what channel you're using and how long you leave it on? When I do an update I would like to mention experiences that other members have had and would like to include details so people know under what conditions members have had success.

 

[fishythingsouthwest]

@fishythingsouthwest Can you let me know the size of your tank and if you're using the app or the remote and if you're using the remote what channel you're using and how long you leave it on? When I do an update I would like to mention experiences that other members have had and would like to include details so people know under what conditions members have had success.

i had it on an aquanano 40 so 55L and then a 90L tank currently, I use the remote and ramp up the lights in the morning manually before going out, then ramp down in the evening, starting with purple (channel 1?) , blue (channel 3?), uv (channel 4?) and whites (channel 2?)(whites only 50%) i leave it on about 10/12 hours a day but that includes a couple of hours morning and evening just on 10% on blues or purple.

obviously my schedule works for me and the light as there is no app as far as im aware! but for most i would presume thats not ideal! but growth wise and price wise im pretty happy with it!

 

[Karen00]

i had it on an aquanano 40 so 55L and then a 90L tank currently, I use the remote and ramp up the lights in the morning manually before going out, then ramp down in the evening, starting with purple (channel 1?) , blue (channel 3?), uv (channel 4?) and whites (channel 2?)(whites only 50%) i leave it on about 10/12 hours a day but that includes a couple of hours morning and evening just on 10% on blues or purple.

obviously my schedule works for me and the light as there is no app as far as im aware! but for most i would presume thats not ideal! but growth wise and price wise im pretty happy with it!

Thanks. I will make note of this. The app is Magic Home Pro (on Android and I believe iPhone as well). The app integrates with an optional wireless/wifi controller. If you don't get the controller you can't use the app which is no big loss. The app is meant for led strip lighting where you can have the LEDs sync to music, etc. The app/wifi controller are in no way meant for reef tanks. It was written for doing fun things with strip lighting. The people at Lominie simply integrated the light into their software instead of doing a proper reef app. The app only does RGBW so you lose the royal blue and violet. Also, to the best of my knowledge that is not UV in the light. It's just a red led. UV is a totally different spectrum.

How long have you been running it?

 

[spiritanimal]

Also known as: Lumini Pixie 30 Reef Light
Tank: 5g pico
The short answer: Don't waste your money. It's doubtful this light will grow hard to keep corals but will possibly grow the easy ones (see my summation).

Out of 10 stars:
Customer Support:

• Speed of reply: 10
• Quality of reply: 1

Material Quality:

• Materials: 7
• Quality of construction: 4

Functionality: 3
Design: 8

After killing a couple corals with the stock light that came with the Top Fin tank I went ahead and purchased this Chinese made light after doing a fair bit of research on budget reef lights finally settling on this one. The specs of this light sounded fairly decent and because my tank is just a 5g I didn't need a light with an overwhelming amount of par.

In the box:

• Light head.
• RF Remote control programmed with 5 pre-programmed channels: CH1: 6 blues, CH2: 6 whites, CH3: 3 blue, 2 royal blue, 1 violet, CH4: 1 green, 1 red, 4 white, CH5: All on. These can be summed/brightened in 10% increments. Has preset timer settings but I think you can only do one channel so no switching channels throughout the day.
• Controller for the RF remote.
• Mounting arm: At its shortest the light head is approx. 6-½" above the top rim of the tank and approx. 8-½" at full extension. (Note: A hanging kit is featured but the light no longer comes with it). I decided to measure from the rim of the tank instead of the water surface because everyone keeps their tank filled to different levels.
• Seven screws.
• Power cable.
• Instructions.
• Optional purchase: WiFi controller RGBW (this should have been a red flag, details further down). The app used with this is Magic Home Pro (free) for strip lighting (this also should have been a red flag, details further down).

Details:
Instructions: Useless.

Design:
It's a stylish looking light that sits high enough (even at its lowest mounting point) so it doesn't get in the way of doing tank maintenance, feeding, etc.

Light head (image attached):

• 30w, COB (Chip on Board) style.
• Dimensions of light head: 4" x 4".
• Features: 6 white, 7 blue, 8 royal blue, 1 violet, 1 red (not UV) and 1 green. At first glance this has a decent set of LEDs and is what drew me to it. Caveat: I learned from a fellow member that true reef lights are tuned to the required nm for each light (ex: 440-450nm for royal blue). I have no idea if these LEDs are proper reef tuned LEDs. Maybe they aren't which could play a part in the cheaper price (my speculation).

PAR:
The PAR map looks decent but there is no information if this was performed in the air or in the water. The readings must have been taken with the light suspended using the now defunct hanging kit because they show 18" above the water. The supplied mounting arm extends only to about 8-½".

RF remote and controller:

• Comes with five pre-programmed channels: CH1: 6 blues, CH2: 6 whites, CH3: 3 blue, 2 royal blue, 1 violet, CH4: 1 green, 1 red, 4 white, CH5: All on.
• All channels can be dimmed/brightened in 10% increments. I am not sure if the dimming/brighten feature behaves the same way as the app where you are actually changing the colour.
• Has six preset timer settings: 2H, 8H, 10H, 12H, 16H, 18H but I think you can only do one channel so no switching channels throughout the day. There doesn't seem to be a way to set the time of day. I can only assume you hit one of the buttons and it will stay on for that length of time then shuts off. I assume this has to be done manually each day.
• The RF remote controller is what connects the remote to the light head via RF. It attaches to the power cord. It has a few function buttons on it to presumably control the light in case the actual remote is lost or broken.

Colour:
Black and silver. I don't think it comes in white.

Materials:
Metal and plastic.

Construction:
There seems to be issues with quality control in the manufacturing process. One of the screw holes that secures the light head to the mounting arm isn't deep enough so the screw won't tighten to its fullest depth and the second screw isn't enough on its own to keep the light head stable and in position. See customer support below for my interaction with them. I can probably find a shorter screw, I just haven't bothered yet.

Optional Magic Home Pro app and controller:

• The instructions are vague but this app was never meant to do anything complex.
• No access to the royal blue and violet LEDs only RGBW.
• As mentioned the controller pairs with the Magic Home Pro app which is meant for strip lighting so only supports RGBW.
• No ability to dim/brighten while holding the RGBW colour settings. Ex: 0,0,255 is full blue. When you try to dim it the colour decreases such as 0,0,200. This also applies to custom profiles.
• No ability to do acclimation mode.
• No ability to do sunrise/sunset.
• Seems to lose customized profiles quite often which is enough to make me hate this app especially when the key to a reef tank is stability. It seems to revert to white light. Reviewing timer profile settings also seems to cause it to revert to white.
• When doing custom profiles there is no way to save white light as part of the mix, however you can save white if you do timer profiles. Timer profiles are limited to on/off so there is no blending effect as the profiles change throughout the day.
• There are pre-programmed lighting profiles but none are good for reefing.

Customer service:
They are quick to reply but hopeless to deal with. When I informed them (with a picture) of the issue with the screw not fitting the light head there first response was "all the screws are custom for each hole so to try each one.". Ridiculous, they aren't customized for each hole. When I told them this their reply was to shoot a video of me assembling it. Really?! Ridiculous. I let this go. My next interaction was to get help with the app figuring I was missing something in trying to access the royal blue and violet LEDs. Their reply was so ridiculous you can tell the customer service people know nothing about reefs and reef lighting. I asked if I could have my message forwarded to the developers. I never heard back. I still have to rate this light on Amazon.

To sum up:
If you absolutely need a budget light the Lominie Pixie 30 isn't bad if you use the remote. Don't waste your money on the controller, you lose control instead of improving it. There is no way to customize the pre-programmed channels on the remote but at least you have access to all of the LEDs. If they'd gone the extra step of building their own app and controller this would be a great light (assuming the LEDs are proper reef LEDs) although I can only assume had they done this the cost would probably be close to rhat of an AI Prime 16HD.
Caveat: I doubt this will grow hard to keep corals and given this light has been up for only a couple weeks it remains to be seen how easier corals do. So far my photosynthetic gorg and xenia seem relatively happy. I will update this thread after the light has been in use longer however I might have an AI Prime 16HD by then. I will also update this with answers to questions that are asked if I missed referencing aspects of the light.

Also known as: Lumini Pixie 30 Reef Light
Tank: 5g pico
The short answer: Don't waste your money. It's doubtful this light will grow hard to keep corals but will possibly grow the easy ones (see my summation).

Out of 10 stars:
Customer Support:

• Speed of reply: 10
• Quality of reply: 1

Material Quality:

• Materials: 7
• Quality of construction: 4

Functionality: 3
Design: 8

After killing a couple corals with the stock light that came with the Top Fin tank I went ahead and purchased this Chinese made light after doing a fair bit of research on budget reef lights finally settling on this one. The specs of this light sounded fairly decent and because my tank is just a 5g I didn't need a light with an overwhelming amount of par.

In the box:

• Light head.
• RF Remote control programmed with 5 pre-programmed channels: CH1: 6 blues, CH2: 6 whites, CH3: 3 blue, 2 royal blue, 1 violet, CH4: 1 green, 1 red, 4 white, CH5: All on. These can be summed/brightened in 10% increments. Has preset timer settings but I think you can only do one channel so no switching channels throughout the day.
• Controller for the RF remote.
• Mounting arm: At its shortest the light head is approx. 6-½" above the top rim of the tank and approx. 8-½" at full extension. (Note: A hanging kit is featured but the light no longer comes with it). I decided to measure from the rim of the tank instead of the water surface because everyone keeps their tank filled to different levels.
• Seven screws.
• Power cable.
• Instructions.
• Optional purchase: WiFi controller RGBW (this should have been a red flag, details further down). The app used with this is Magic Home Pro (free) for strip lighting (this also should have been a red flag, details further down).

Details:
Instructions: Useless.

Design:
It's a stylish looking light that sits high enough (even at its lowest mounting point) so it doesn't get in the way of doing tank maintenance, feeding, etc.

Light head (image attached):

• 30w, COB (Chip on Board) style.
• Dimensions of light head: 4" x 4".
• Features: 6 white, 7 blue, 8 royal blue, 1 violet, 1 red (not UV) and 1 green. At first glance this has a decent set of LEDs and is what drew me to it. Caveat: I learned from a fellow member that true reef lights are tuned to the required nm for each light (ex: 440-450nm for royal blue). I have no idea if these LEDs are proper reef tuned LEDs. Maybe they aren't which could play a part in the cheaper price (my speculation).

PAR:
The PAR map looks decent but there is no information if this was performed in the air or in the water. The readings must have been taken with the light suspended using the now defunct hanging kit because they show 18" above the water. The supplied mounting arm extends only to about 8-½".

RF remote and controller:

• Comes with five pre-programmed channels: CH1: 6 blues, CH2: 6 whites, CH3: 3 blue, 2 royal blue, 1 violet, CH4: 1 green, 1 red, 4 white, CH5: All on.
• All channels can be dimmed/brightened in 10% increments. I am not sure if the dimming/brighten feature behaves the same way as the app where you are actually changing the colour.
• Has six preset timer settings: 2H, 8H, 10H, 12H, 16H, 18H but I think you can only do one channel so no switching channels throughout the day. There doesn't seem to be a way to set the time of day. I can only assume you hit one of the buttons and it will stay on for that length of time then shuts off. I assume this has to be done manually each day.
• The RF remote controller is what connects the remote to the light head via RF. It attaches to the power cord. It has a few function buttons on it to presumably control the light in case the actual remote is lost or broken.

Colour:
Black and silver. I don't think it comes in white.

Materials:
Metal and plastic.

Construction:
There seems to be issues with quality control in the manufacturing process. One of the screw holes that secures the light head to the mounting arm isn't deep enough so the screw won't tighten to its fullest depth and the second screw isn't enough on its own to keep the light head stable and in position. See customer support below for my interaction with them. I can probably find a shorter screw, I just haven't bothered yet.

Optional Magic Home Pro app and controller:

• The instructions are vague but this app was never meant to do anything complex.
• No access to the royal blue and violet LEDs only RGBW.
• As mentioned the controller pairs with the Magic Home Pro app which is meant for strip lighting so only supports RGBW.
• No ability to dim/brighten while holding the RGBW colour settings. Ex: 0,0,255 is full blue. When you try to dim it the colour decreases such as 0,0,200. This also applies to custom profiles.
• No ability to do acclimation mode.
• No ability to do sunrise/sunset.
• Seems to lose customized profiles quite often which is enough to make me hate this app especially when the key to a reef tank is stability. It seems to revert to white light. Reviewing timer profile settings also seems to cause it to revert to white.
• When doing custom profiles there is no way to save white light as part of the mix, however you can save white if you do timer profiles. Timer profiles are limited to on/off so there is no blending effect as the profiles change throughout the day.
• There are pre-programmed lighting profiles but none are good for reefing.

Customer service:
They are quick to reply but hopeless to deal with. When I informed them (with a picture) of the issue with the screw not fitting the light head there first response was "all the screws are custom for each hole so to try each one.". Ridiculous, they aren't customized for each hole. When I told them this their reply was to shoot a video of me assembling it. Really?! Ridiculous. I let this go. My next interaction was to get help with the app figuring I was missing something in trying to access the royal blue and violet LEDs. Their reply was so ridiculous you can tell the customer service people know nothing about reefs and reef lighting. I asked if I could have my message forwarded to the developers. I never heard back. I still have to rate this light on Amazon.

To sum up:
If you absolutely need a budget light the Lominie Pixie 30 isn't bad if you use the remote. Don't waste your money on the controller, you lose control instead of improving it. There is no way to customize the pre-programmed channels on the remote but at least you have access to all of the LEDs. If they'd gone the extra step of building their own app and controller this would be a great light (assuming the LEDs are proper reef LEDs) although I can only assume had they done this the cost would probably be close to rhat of an AI Prime 16HD.
Caveat: I doubt this will grow hard to keep corals and given this light has been up for only a couple weeks it remains to be seen how easier corals do. So far my photosynthetic gorg and xenia seem relatively happy. I will update this thread after the light has been in use longer however I might have an AI Prime 16HD by then. I will also update this with answers to questions that are asked if I missed referencing aspects of the light.

Hello, I read your article, thank you. Regarding Pixie 30, what is its suitability for a reef aquarium during the time you use it?

 

[mig.]

I took a chance on this light and boxed it back up for a return within 10 mins. The construction I thought was good, the COB and lens looked really good, the remote not bad, the packaging well done, the light output however was disappointing, they made my corals look dull at best, brown and lifeless at worst.

I was hoping this light would be at least as good than the handful of $0.79 royal blue LED strips and $6 nano tank usb light from Temu which I hacked together but its performance wasn’t even close. The Temu hack has more pop and higher color temp.

I’ll try the Noop K7’s next ..