MaxTremors
2500 Club Member
I was recently reached out to by Noopsyche about testing out their new Noopsyche K7 V3 140w light. I wasn’t necessarily in the market for a new light, as I was using an AI Prime and was pretty satisfied with it, but figured since Noopsyche was gracious enough to offer for me to test out the light, I might as well give it a shot. And I am so glad I did. Here is a run down of how ordering, shipping, and installation went, and then my initial, honest thoughts on the light. I will be updating this thread to document growth and my impressions and experience with the light over time.
So first, let me detail how the ordering went. As I mentioned, Noopsyche reached out to me to test their light, and so they sent me a code that allowed me to order one Noopsyche K7 V3 140watt light, a mounting arm, and the controller. I made the order for the light, and I did have to pay the shipping on it (which was $33 USD). I then for some reason thought that it didn’t include the mounting arm and controller, so I ordered those (code worked for those as well), and paid $22 shipping for those (Noopsyche messaged me the next day and said that the light came with the arm and controller and that I didn’t need the extras that I ordered and promptly refunded me the $22 shipping that I had paid). Overall, their website is well designed and easy to use, though I do wish that it was a little bit more clear as to what exactly is included with the light, if there was a detailed list of what was included in the box, I wouldn’t have mistakenly ordered a second mounting arm and controller.
After ordering, I received confirmation emails and waited for the light to ship. Noopsyche had put out a post about shipping delays due to a week long Chinese holiday and delays in shipping due to covid for the month of October, but to my surprise, the light shipped out 4-5 days (including a weekend) after making the order. The shipped using FedEx and altogether it took 5-6 days to arrive from when it shipped (around 10-11 days from when I ordered). FedEx did delay the package by one day, but it seems like FedEx always delays things lately. Overall I was pretty impressed that the light arrived so quickly, I have ordered quite a few things directly from China, and have had shipments take over a month. The package arrived in good shape, everything was well secured and well packaged.
So upon receiving the light, I promptly got to work setting it up. I watched Noopsyche’s video on how to setup the light on YouTube. Setting it up was fairly easy and straight forward. Attaching the arm to the bracket that connects the arm to the aquarium was a little difficult, the screws required some effort to screw in, but I was able to get them tight. I attached the light to the arm and then attached the whole setup to the aquarium. The bracket that attached the arm to aquarium is sturdy and fit well over the rim of my tank (something the arm for my AI Prime did not do). It is very sturdy (I did have to use a wrench to tighten the nylon bolts, as I couldn’t turn them by hand while holding the light up with my other hand). I attached the light to the arm sideways since the mounting arm is on the side of my tank instead of the back, the light and mounting arm allowed for this without any issue.
I then got to work getting the light programmed. This was easily the most difficult part of installing the light. The instructions aren’t very clear, and the video on their YouTube channel doesn’t go into some of the finer details. I ended up figuring it out, but I imagine some people might have some trouble figuring it out. I got the controller paired to the light and got the time set. I didn’t mess with setting up a manual schedule, and just used the LPS preset (though I did change the times to match the on/off times I had the AI Prime set at). The main reason for this is that I found the LPS preset very appealing, and while it was definitely pushing more PAR than the settings I had the AI Prime set to, it didn’t seem so significantly stronger that it would harm my corals. I will most likely mess around with it some more and go through the individual channels and see what I can come up with, but for now the LPS preset looks great.
So my overall day one thoughts: I think this light is an amazing value. What I was most impressed by was the spectrum of the light, even without dialing in all channels to my specific preferences, all of the presets looked great, the LPS preset looks much better than my AI Prime (I have messed with the AI Prime app quite a bit and I could maybe come up with a similar spectrum as the Noopsyche, but none of the profiles I’ve downloaded and none of the profiles I’ve made have looked this good). My corals really just ‘popped’ under the new light. The LPS preset is pretty blue, but not windex blue, it still has some white light that shows the true colors of the fish while really highlighting the colors and fluorescence of the corals. So day one, I would rate the spectrum and intensity 10 out of 10.
The only real downside to this light, and I think it’s likely why they can sell it for such a low price, is that it lacks wifi/bluetooth functionality and can’t be controlled with an app. The controller is unintuitive and somewhat confusing, and it lacks a lot of the features that a lot of higher end lights have (things like feed mode, moon light and moon phase simulation, etc). I think if they put some effort into making it controllable through a user friendly app, they’d easily be able to compete with the higher end lights, because otherwise the build quality and the quality of the actual lighting is there. That said, I’m glad there is a quality light that has some real power and that has a great spectrum in this price range. And the reality is, once most of us find a schedule and spectrum we like, we ‘set it and forget it’, so I think using the controller is more of a one time frustration for most people.
Overall, I am really satisfied with the light, it has exceeded my expectations. As I said, I wasn’t really in the market for a new light, but I’m glad that I was given the opportunity to test it out, as of now I wouldn’t hesitate buying or recommending this light in the future. I will continue to post updates in this thread with my thoughts on the light and document how my tank and corals respond to the light, but as I said, so far I’m beyond happy with it.
So first, let me detail how the ordering went. As I mentioned, Noopsyche reached out to me to test their light, and so they sent me a code that allowed me to order one Noopsyche K7 V3 140watt light, a mounting arm, and the controller. I made the order for the light, and I did have to pay the shipping on it (which was $33 USD). I then for some reason thought that it didn’t include the mounting arm and controller, so I ordered those (code worked for those as well), and paid $22 shipping for those (Noopsyche messaged me the next day and said that the light came with the arm and controller and that I didn’t need the extras that I ordered and promptly refunded me the $22 shipping that I had paid). Overall, their website is well designed and easy to use, though I do wish that it was a little bit more clear as to what exactly is included with the light, if there was a detailed list of what was included in the box, I wouldn’t have mistakenly ordered a second mounting arm and controller.
After ordering, I received confirmation emails and waited for the light to ship. Noopsyche had put out a post about shipping delays due to a week long Chinese holiday and delays in shipping due to covid for the month of October, but to my surprise, the light shipped out 4-5 days (including a weekend) after making the order. The shipped using FedEx and altogether it took 5-6 days to arrive from when it shipped (around 10-11 days from when I ordered). FedEx did delay the package by one day, but it seems like FedEx always delays things lately. Overall I was pretty impressed that the light arrived so quickly, I have ordered quite a few things directly from China, and have had shipments take over a month. The package arrived in good shape, everything was well secured and well packaged.
So upon receiving the light, I promptly got to work setting it up. I watched Noopsyche’s video on how to setup the light on YouTube. Setting it up was fairly easy and straight forward. Attaching the arm to the bracket that connects the arm to the aquarium was a little difficult, the screws required some effort to screw in, but I was able to get them tight. I attached the light to the arm and then attached the whole setup to the aquarium. The bracket that attached the arm to aquarium is sturdy and fit well over the rim of my tank (something the arm for my AI Prime did not do). It is very sturdy (I did have to use a wrench to tighten the nylon bolts, as I couldn’t turn them by hand while holding the light up with my other hand). I attached the light to the arm sideways since the mounting arm is on the side of my tank instead of the back, the light and mounting arm allowed for this without any issue.
I then got to work getting the light programmed. This was easily the most difficult part of installing the light. The instructions aren’t very clear, and the video on their YouTube channel doesn’t go into some of the finer details. I ended up figuring it out, but I imagine some people might have some trouble figuring it out. I got the controller paired to the light and got the time set. I didn’t mess with setting up a manual schedule, and just used the LPS preset (though I did change the times to match the on/off times I had the AI Prime set at). The main reason for this is that I found the LPS preset very appealing, and while it was definitely pushing more PAR than the settings I had the AI Prime set to, it didn’t seem so significantly stronger that it would harm my corals. I will most likely mess around with it some more and go through the individual channels and see what I can come up with, but for now the LPS preset looks great.
So my overall day one thoughts: I think this light is an amazing value. What I was most impressed by was the spectrum of the light, even without dialing in all channels to my specific preferences, all of the presets looked great, the LPS preset looks much better than my AI Prime (I have messed with the AI Prime app quite a bit and I could maybe come up with a similar spectrum as the Noopsyche, but none of the profiles I’ve downloaded and none of the profiles I’ve made have looked this good). My corals really just ‘popped’ under the new light. The LPS preset is pretty blue, but not windex blue, it still has some white light that shows the true colors of the fish while really highlighting the colors and fluorescence of the corals. So day one, I would rate the spectrum and intensity 10 out of 10.
The only real downside to this light, and I think it’s likely why they can sell it for such a low price, is that it lacks wifi/bluetooth functionality and can’t be controlled with an app. The controller is unintuitive and somewhat confusing, and it lacks a lot of the features that a lot of higher end lights have (things like feed mode, moon light and moon phase simulation, etc). I think if they put some effort into making it controllable through a user friendly app, they’d easily be able to compete with the higher end lights, because otherwise the build quality and the quality of the actual lighting is there. That said, I’m glad there is a quality light that has some real power and that has a great spectrum in this price range. And the reality is, once most of us find a schedule and spectrum we like, we ‘set it and forget it’, so I think using the controller is more of a one time frustration for most people.
Overall, I am really satisfied with the light, it has exceeded my expectations. As I said, I wasn’t really in the market for a new light, but I’m glad that I was given the opportunity to test it out, as of now I wouldn’t hesitate buying or recommending this light in the future. I will continue to post updates in this thread with my thoughts on the light and document how my tank and corals respond to the light, but as I said, so far I’m beyond happy with it.
