Nicobar LED Strip Light, Finally a Worthy NEW Supplemental LED Bar

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Reef Builders

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The NicoBAR LED Striplight is a newer aquarium light that we’ve cautiously been keeping an eye on over the last several months. These strong supplemental lights have been making some appearances around our local scene and retail stores and while we initially pegged them as an off-brand relabeled striplight, we’ve seen enough examples of these…
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Scdell

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Hmmmmm. Think I'll stick with my Mitras lightbars.
 

Kayanarka

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TLDR Frustrating to use and set up, maybe better for professionals with spectrum testing gear.


I own a set of these and I am frustrated with them.

I can not get it to connect to my house wifi.

I have to manually setup the spectrum I want by adjusting the brightness of the various strips individually, and I have to do that for every step in my daily program, across each bar. So making a slight adjustment to spectrum throughout the day requires manually editing the strength of each bar at each time frame there is a change.

For example, if you have it ramp up slowly, stay steady for a period, then ramp down, you might have 5 steps ramping up and 5 steps ramping down. This is 10 steps total, I have 3 bars, so that is 30 adjustments to change spectrum. 30 adjustments! If you have the full 4 bar set your making 40 adjustments to modify spectrum.

I am no spectrum expert, so how do I know what is even correct for spectrum, do I need a spectrum tester? I did par measurements. But. If I turn white up to 35% blue must be down to 65 % to hit par. With white at 25% blue must run at 75% to hit par. So get ready to spend an entire day with par meter and clunky program to set your spectrum for good viewing. I ended up with white at 25% and blue at 75% and it just seems too dark, but the coral seem happier. Very frustrating.

I am comparing these to a Maxspect light I just bought. The maxspect has 3 spectrum settings, an automatic setup feature, a moonlight feature, and the ability to ramp up over time for acclimation. It instantly connected to my house wifi, so I can adjust the light with out having to change wifi like I do with the nico bar.

The Nico bars might be great if you are a pro, and you have spectrum testing gear. If your setting up the nico without a spectrometer then your just guessing, and who wants to guess when it comes to these expensive corals we work so hard to keep healthy.
 
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