Neptune SKY LED

[zalick]

As for your comments about Marc Levenson, just saying "I don't mean that with any disrespect" does not alleviate a person from said disrespect. Marc Levenson is one of the most trusted, long term, successful, and honest people in this hobby. You calling into question his ethics is just uncalled for, a bit gross and below what I thought @revhtree has as expectations of behavior as he been trying to build as an ideal reefing community here on R2R.

First, I love all my Neptune products and sing Neptune’s praises both for quality products and quality customer service. I think the SKY looks very promising and I will likely own one some day.

I am in the medical world and work with and use medical literature and studies daily. When a researcher fails to disclose compensation in any form (discount or other gift of value) from the company the doctor is writing about, that is a big ethical no-no. The same is true for any reviewer, no matter how well respected. I think questioning whether Marc received compensation in the form of discounts and failed to disclose that in the review is very appropriate. It would be appropriate to question in any scientific field.

Advancement occurs through rigorous debate and challenging the biases of everyone. It’s unfortunate that challenges to Marc’s potential biases that may affect his review are not allowed on this site. This is certainly not name calling nor flaming.

 

[oreo54]

First, I love all my Neptune products and sing Neptune’s praises both for quality products and quality customer service. I think the SKY looks very promising and I will likely own one some day.

I am in the medical world and work with and use medical literature and studies daily. When a researcher fails to disclose compensation in any form (discount or other gift of value) from the company the doctor is writing about, that is a big ethical no-no. The same is true for any reviewer, no matter how well respected. I think questioning whether Marc received compensation in the form of discounts and failed to disclose that in the review is very appropriate. It would be appropriate to question in any scientific field.

Advancement occurs through rigorous debate and challenging the biases of everyone. It’s unfortunate that challenges to Marc’s potential biases that may affect his review are not allowed on this site. This is certainly not name calling nor flaming.

When they post a juried research article I'll agree with you. Welcome to the United States of Marketing.

https://www.propublica.org/article/...-dollars-by-drug-and-medical-device-companies

Pot don't call kettle black...

A flurry of studies matched the payment data with doctors’ prescribing choices and found links between the payments and the products doctors chose.

Sorry, you hit a hot button for me..
I trust his over a lot of other things, AND my life isn't in the balance .

 

[Ryan Avery]

Well this thread went off the rails

 

[MasterChief]

I spoke with Terrence about the Sky and did a short interview on water chems in their farm tour video today and Im actually looking forward to seeing how it does.
I started using halides in 2001 and still love them, sure many are doing their best to replicate them with LEDs yes but practicality comes into play too, plus you can't achieve the coloration in some corals with halides that you can with LED.
I can't give any criticism on the the light yet as I haven't seen results first hand, but I like the design and spread. Look forward to seeing how it does over some of our corals when we get a chance to play around with it , any innovation in the hobby is a good thing as I see it.

Well said

 

[stephj03]

Sorry if I contributed to the distraction here.

@terrence


please, please, please get Neptune to look into controllable bars (bars with spectral and intensity programming). I would throw 10 OR3 bars on my tank today and get rid of my Halides if I could program them in concert like a radion/sky/Atlantik.

 

[MasterChief]

Sorry if I contributed to the distraction here.

@terrence


please, please, please get Neptune to look into controllable bars (bars with spectral and intensity programming). I would throw 10 OR3 bars ony tank today and get rid of my Halides if I could program them in concert like a radion/sky/Atlantik.

Ooh... I like where your heads at...
Addressable LED bars perhaps?

 

[gcarroll]

Wow, reading this thread, you would think that no one has ever been successful with LED lights in their entire life. Metal halide is not the end all be all. When I had my previous 225 gallon, I had seven different metal halide fixture combinations over the ten-year period of that tank. I was asked to be tank of the month on another board when I was running 100% metal halide, but I declined. I was asked to be tank of the month when I ran metal halide with T5, but I declined. I was asked to be tank of the month when I ran metal halide with LED, and I accepted. To be honest, no matter how good the tank looked, I always was trying to get more out of it. The only reason I finally excepted was only because I was tearing the tank down. With the new tank I decided to go all LED. I’ve been very pleased with the results and I am never going back to metal halide. For those of you who were talking that LED It’s not good enough because you didn’t see what you wanted to see when it comes to results. I say user error. But like any reefkeeping failure out there, they’re always looking to blame somebody else. All it takes is one person to succeed with a particular method. If they can we can. For now, I am completely confident that LED is more than capable. But I’m a gear junkie, so who knows what the future holds. I will say this though the biggest problem with metal halide is the bulbs won’t be around much longer. I saw a mention of bulb brands that people are using that were considered bottom of the barrel when I was running halides. I wouldn’t have thought twice about those bulbs back then and you guys are forming your last stand on them like Davey Crocket at the Alamo. Spoiler alert: Davey dies!

 

[SuncrestReef]

Would be great if I could get some LED gear for free to try here and make some nice video about it. LOL! I would be true doing my review though. I don't think many LED companies would trust the performance of their fixtures enough to allow me to analise the results of their products, comparing to what I get out of my halide/T5s here. LOL! Oh well...

Believe it or not, NSI members are not required to produce videos or write reviews. I was invited to be a SKY NSI tester. There's actually a lot of commitment you need to make to trust your reef to an untested product, so it's not just about getting a price discount.

I personally would hate to be a manufacturer in the reefing industry. It seems every product gets a mix of fans and haters, and usually the negative reviews dominate the posts. Imagine devoting years to developing a product only to read angry posts from people who think it costs too much or that we should rely on older technologies indefinitely.

 

[KarlsReef]

Hmmmm

 

[revhtree]

This is not a thread about LED versus MH so please stop hijacking this thread about the SKY. If you want to argue the two please go start your own thread.

 

[Jon's Reef]

Would have been great if Terrance, Marc and other NSI had felt safe to answer questions etc without fear of being attacked. This is how a few individuals kill the whole open community.

Unfortunately I don’t think a new thread would fix it as those same people will do it again and that opportunity for some insider insights has sailed.

 

[revhtree]

Would have been great if Terrance, Marc and other NSI had felt safe to answer questions etc without fear of being attacked. This is how a few individuals kill the whole open community.

Unfortunately I don’t think a new thread would fix it as those same people will do it again and that opportunity for some insider insights

Agreed but We will be cleaning this thread up even more and removing members who continue to hijack or spread a narrative that lends to their hate of a company or product. I’m tired of it.

 

[revhtree]

Cleaned up the most latest led versus mh posts and if you got caught in the crossfire I apologize. If you see more posts that need removing report it please.

Keep this thread on topic please.

 

[flourishofmediocrity]

Believe it or not, NSI members are not required to produce videos or write reviews. I was invited to be a SKY NSI tester. There's actually a lot of commitment you need to make to trust your reef to an untested product, so it's not just about getting a price discount.

I personally would hate to be a manufacturer in the reefing industry. It seems every product gets a mix of fans and haters, and usually the negative reviews dominate the posts. Imagine devoting years to developing a product only to read angry posts from people who think it costs too much or that we should rely on older technologies indefinitely.

I would be interested to hear anything from any NSI members so long as they are not breaking any agreements with Neptune. I am specifically interested to hear first hand (video would be better!) about the shimmer in particular. I was leaning toward Kessil + reef bright strips until I heard about the sky, and I was never interested in T5 because I heard how flat they are.

 

[Ryan Avery]

I would be interested to hear anything from any NSI members so long as they are not breaking any agreements with Neptune. I am specifically interested to hear first hand (video would be better!) about the shimmer in particular. I was leaning toward Kessil + reef bright strips until I heard about the sky, and I was never interested in T5 because I heard how flat they are.

From what i have seen it has very subtle shimmer, close to the coral care.

 

[VJV]

Ok, here are my two cents on the SKY. First, I will start by saying that switching from GHL (controller, KH Director, Dosers, etc) to Neptune was the best decision I have ever made. I have no beef with Neptune (other than the lack of an EB8 in Europe or a NO3/PO4 automatic tester), quite the contrary.

i confess I am a bit disappointed with a couple of things:

1- Size: to get a blanket coverage you need a large panel. Yes, you can play around with lenses or reflectors but in the end the smaller the panel the more shadowing it will produce. Philips Coral Care or ATI Straton are two good examples (this is not saying it will not grow coral). I was expecting/hoping for a larger form factor

2 - build quality: the fact that the diffuser rattles inside the unit, at this price, is disappointing. Probably wont affect performance but it does help with pride of ownership, something that at this price point is important;

3 - It would be important to know exact What LEDs are inside (make/brand) because ultimately it provides a lot of comfort when you shell out big bucks to know these are Philips/Cree and not cheap Chinese units.

As for the rest, only tine will tell.

 

[zalick]

I would be interested to hear anything from any NSI members so long as they are not breaking any agreements with Neptune. I am specifically interested to hear first hand (video would be better!) about the shimmer in particular. I was leaning toward Kessil + reef bright strips until I heard about the sky, and I was never interested in T5 because I heard how flat they are.

Marc points out the shimmer in his video. It looks nice and subtle. I own 6 kessil a360. Switched to mitras LX7. Now run mitras with halides. Gotta say if I were in the market now for led, I’d hold out for the sky.

 

[Bpb]

Interested to see the specs when they’re released

 

[flourishofmediocrity]

Interested to see the specs when they’re released

There are some details on BRS:

SKY LED Aquarium Light

The Closest to The Sun You Can Get The SKY is a 200w LED aquarium light, with patented diffuser technology smoothly blending 104 LEDs to create a uniformly blended field of coral-health-optimized light. Taking a cue from nature, the specialized diffuser array mimics the filtering effect of our...

www.bulkreefsupply.com

just a little from the bottom of the description there:

Coverage:

• Maximum Spread: 30" x 36"
• Recommended Spread: 24" x 30"

LED Details

• 104 LED’s (including uv)
• Dedicated Moonlights
• 4 Controllable Channels

Specifications:

• Dimensions: 12.8 x 9.25
• Power Input: 100-240VAC 1.8A 50/60Hz
• Variable Usage (MAX): 219W

What's Included?

• SKY LED Light
• 219w Meanwell Power Supply
• Aquabus Y-Cable
• Orange Logo (pre-installed)
• Gray Logo
• 4x M4 Mounting Screws

 

[BZOFIQ]

To Neptune's credit at least they are using Meanwell's Power Supplies, definitely a step in the right direction.