The real Black Box light study

[ReefWithCare]

Vipar is literally taking this :eek:

 

[mshonk]

I've been watching this thread. Y'all are so biased toward cheap Chinese lights. You're overlooking many things. Par is not the most important thing. There is spectral quality, the amount of channels available. Type of LEDs used, etc, etc. Then there's the amount of r&d the big boys do to make the lights correct. R&d cost money. The Chinese aren't doing that. R&d is what your paying for. I know what par my lights put out and it's way better than what ever I've seen here. And I know I'm going to get flamed here. It's my opinion. That's all. That's why I'm going to leave this thread. Test your chinese lights against the "big" boys. Kessils a360we is no longer the big boys.

I do beleive this thread is about black box or less expensive light studies. :) I have a cheap black box. With good params and husbandry it is coloring up loads of browned out sps. I can only adjust two channels and it has a timer. I personally don't need anything else in a light. I feel as though the extra trimmings are nice they are just fluff. Perhaps I am old school and used to run metal halides. Try adjusting those lights.

 

[ph123uk]

Going to use reef-pi to give me ramping on my "Ultra Viparspectra HD" fitting - best of all worlds

 

[ReefWithCare]

I do beleive this thread is about black box or less expensive light studies. [emoji4] I have a cheap black box. With good params and husbandry it is coloring up loads of browned out sps. I can only adjust two channels and it has a timer. I personally don't need anything else in a light. I feel as though the extra trimmings are nice they are just fluff. Perhaps I am old school and used to run metal halides. Try adjusting those lights.

Chinese steal the R&D and reverse engineer [emoji28] or the high end brand outsources production and 2 yrs later out pops up Chinese copies ‍

 

[mshonk]

Chinese steal the R&D and reverse engineer [emoji28] or the high end brand outsources production and 2 yrs later out pops up Chinese copies ‍

I built a black box so to speak when LED s first came on to the scene. It was a on a piece of 10" channel aluminium that was 44" long. I had 48 3w bridgelux LED s. 24 10k white and 24 460nm blue. It had pots on it to adjust intensity and I had a reefkeeper to turn the seperate channels on and off. But i suppose that is any industry. some manufacturers only focus on making a less expensive version of industry leaders product.

 

[Manose]

The real problem is people think if a light is made in China it is a "Black Box" and that is far from the truth. Another misnomer is the belief that the lights have no expensive RandD, as quiet a few companies have a very specialized and sophisticated internal research and development.

I would like us to stay on topic here as I'll have some more testing completed at the end of the week.

 

[Skynyrd Fish]

Thank you for doing this.

 

[ReefWithCare]

The real problem is people think if a light is made in China it is a "Black Box" and that is far from the truth. Another misnomer is the belief that the lights have no expensive RandD, as quiet a few companies have a very specialized and sophisticated internal research and development.

I would like us to stay on topic here as I'll have some more testing completed at the end of the week.

I wish you would test ocean Revive [emoji28]

 

[Manose]

I wish you would test ocean Revive [emoji28]

I probably will as we are really early in testing.

 

[Jonreefer]

so I have 2 of those Aquarium System Solutions ASML-01 coming in. the 30w ones
I am moving to a 40B and wanted to add some more light so I will be running my XR30 pro G2 and one of these lights on each end of the tank. Was figuring they were probably as good or better than the a160 going by the output of the 70w version ver the kessil 360

 

[Manose]

so I have 2 of those Aquarium System Solutions ASML-01 coming in. the 30w ones
I am moving to a 40B and wanted to add some more light so I will be running my XR30 pro G2 and one of these lights on each end of the tank. Was figuring they were probably as good or better than the a160 going by the output of the 70w version ver the kessil 360

Basically you would be supplementing the XR30 so I would not think you will see any difference in those vs. the a160's

 

[Jonreefer]

yea its just supplement for the outer edges where the XR30 would fall off some

 

[Fish_Sticks]

A pair of 165w Galaxy Hydro black box leds from ebay ran above my 75g the past two years. Overall the equipment has done well, but theyll turn into rust buckets if you dont clean them and wipe them down with oil. If I had to imagine using these in a hood,.. rust, rust would be everywhere.
They need to be dismantled and cleaned every 6 months to remove dust, too.

Im looking forward to the results from the ~100 dollar dimmable rectangle boxes, and Sbreefs. Galaxy hydros arent for sale anymore. I think they changed the name to evergrow 165w + wifi. Theyre about 110$

They dont have any violet leds, just blue. So everything looks pretty blue and rediculous.

 

[Aquius]

I probably will as we are really early in testing.

Glad to hear it. One of my LFS's and my favorite basement seller use Ocean Revive's. They say they could have gone a more expensive route, but they are just good at producing coral growth and color. I finally picked up two myself for my frag tank after noticing at my last frag swap that about 3/4 of the booths were running them.

 

[dantimdad]

The real problem is people think if a light is made in China it is a "Black Box" and that is far from the truth. Another misnomer is the belief that the lights have no expensive RandD, as quiet a few companies have a very specialized and sophisticated internal research and development.

I would like us to stay on topic here as I'll have some more testing completed at the end of the week.

The other hilarious thing is that people always use the word "cheap" with Chinese. Where do they think their expensive lights are made?

:confused:

 

[Jonreefer]

The other hilarious thing is that people always use the word "cheap" with Chinese. Where do they think their expensive lights are made?

:confused:

shhhhhhhhhhhhhh...Dont you know everything at Ecotech is made in house by them

 

[dantimdad]

shhhhhhhhhhhhhh...Dont you know everything at Ecotech is made in house by them

No that's a secret. They put the made in Taiwan sticker on the side to throw us off. Oh wait, that's Kessil. LOL!

 

[wesman42]

No that's a secret. They put the made in Taiwan sticker on the side to throw us off. Oh wait, that's Kessil. LOL!

I for one, look forward to the continuation of the results we're seeing.

I hope this drives more people to actually explore other options, considering price gouging in this hobby is rampant.....and people are stupid enough to go for it.

 

[A sea K]

I for one, look forward to the continuation of the results we're seeing.

I hope this drives more people to actually explore other options, considering price gouging in this hobby is rampant.....and people are stupid enough to go for it.

+1! I certainly have limitations in my spending and not to say I could not afford the brand name however I simply cannot justify the prices they are asking (and getting) therefore most of my big ticket items are gathered through the classifieds which is getting more competitive as more people turn to this option as well.

 

[Manose]

Going to meet @dantimdad and @Katrina71 tomorrow at the shop where we are testing all these cool lights. I am so stoked and excited to meet people from the forum.
In honor of them coming to the shop I have taken the time to remove the Lumini Pixie 150's from my tank(I am going to be running the K7 lights instead) and bring them to test.
Also got some great news about that light we ordered to test and it will be here Tuesday-
https://www.alibaba.com/product-det...alleryofferlist.normalList.269.52a84369S3plsr

Looks like some fun times ahead;Joyful


Also anyone interested in the lights I have tested already wait till I post them on the R2R market or pm me directly.