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
- Materials: 7
- Quality of construction: 4
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).
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.