What do you think about this led bar?

[KonradTO]

Hi everyone! First serious post here. I am cycling my AIO fluval flex and I need to integrate the original lighting (6500k for freshwater) with a blue led bar for compensating the spectra. I will have reef on one side of the tank and macro on the opposite so I was planning to include simply some blue actinic /royal blue/violet light on the side where the reef will be.
As I don't have access to many brands of leds that get mentioned here (EU market has a lot of German products instead) I wanted to know what do you think about this led bar linked below. It seems quite powerful compared to the fluval 3.0 marine.
https://www.ledaquaristik.de/epages...?ObjectPath=/Shops/64355316/Products/053-xxxx(little trick with Google translate needed, it's in German)
Otherwise if you have some alternatives to suggest I am all ears! I don't want to spend more than 250 €/$ for a light since I am not interested in the fancy dawn/sunset effects and app controlled things. Also I would like to keep the hood on since I don't like the fluval flex look without the hood and it helps me prevent evaporation.
Thanks in advance for the inputs!
Konrad

 

[KonradTO]

I forgot to mention:
I am planning to start with some soft corals and LPS but I want a light that can manage also sps one day. This one seems dimmable to me, so I could run it at lower voltage with soft corals and then slowly increase for the sps once the aquarium is stable.

 

[chaostactics]

I forgot to mention:
I am planning to start with some soft corals and LPS but I want a light that can manage also sps one day. This one seems dimmable to me, so I could run it at lower voltage with soft corals and then slowly increase for the sps once the aquarium is stable.

I have a Fluval AIO tank now. If it's a cube tank the Fluval Marine Nano 3.0 is great! If you have a longer tank the Fluval Marine 3.0 is also great.

 

[KonradTO]

Mine it's a flex 123 so around 40x80.
I actually love the fluval light that comes with it but for a very similar price I will get almost twice as much power. I know watts and PAR are not the same thing but for the same length the fluval light has around 42W while the led above has 84W. Also lumens are much more. And it has water cooling (?! Not sure what that means)

 

[attiland]

Hi everyone! First serious post here. I am cycling my AIO fluval flex and I need to integrate the original lighting (6500k for freshwater) with a blue led bar for compensating the spectra. I will have reef on one side of the tank and macro on the opposite so I was planning to include simply some blue actinic /royal blue/violet light on the side where the reef will be.
As I don't have access to many brands of leds that get mentioned here (EU market has a lot of German products instead) I wanted to know what do you think about this led bar linked below. It seems quite powerful compared to the fluval 3.0 marine.
https://www.ledaquaristik.de/epages...?ObjectPath=/Shops/64355316/Products/053-xxxx(little trick with Google translate needed, it's in German)
Otherwise if you have some alternatives to suggest I am all ears! I don't want to spend more than 250 €/$ for a light since I am not interested in the fancy dawn/sunset effects and app controlled things. Also I would like to keep the hood on since I don't like the fluval flex look without the hood and it helps me prevent evaporation.
Thanks in advance for the inputs!
Konrad

Seems to be a cheap option. I watched the video too but the only info I have missed is par levels so can’t say if this will work.
in general the lights wit separate LEDs have a so called disco effect you need to look up before you go for this model. Lights with lenses have less of this. The price tag on them is 2-3 times higher.
the other thing is the controls seems to be painful to me but you will not mess wit that anyway. The thing is if you want app control you are looking at 3-4x of that price.
I use AQUANEST lights maybe have a look at them
http://www.aquanestlight.com/

 

[chaostactics]

I assume you're talking about the The Flex 32.5 US Gal. (123 L)??

I checked out that light. If I'm understanding right there's no way to control individual color channels and a controller to modify dimming and timing is a separate module?? In that case I'd still say go with the Fluval marine if you're going to keep your lid on it. At the dimensions you're gonna be hard pressed to find a light that will light those dimensions with good programmability at a "good price".

If you're gonna go topless maybe try to find one of the "Chinese black box" LED lights with Bluetooth or Wifi but keep in mind the app support may be minimal.

Honestly it's hard to beat the Fluval Marine series for "smaller" tanks.

Maybe someone else has a better idea.

If you don't care about dawn to dusk timing, individual color channels, etc. Ignore all the above and I dunno what to tell you.

 

[KonradTO]

I assume you're talking about the The Flex 32.5 US Gal. (123 L)??

I checked out that light. If I'm understanding right there's no way to control individual color channels and a controller to modify dimming and timing is a separate module?? In that case I'd still say go with the Fluval marine if you're going to keep your lid on it. At the dimensions you're gonna be hard pressed to find a light that will light those dimensions with good programmability at a "good price".

If you're gonna go topless maybe try to find one of the "Chinese black box" LED lights with Bluetooth or Wifi but keep in mind the app support may be minimal.

Honestly it's hard to beat the Fluval Marine series for "smaller" tanks.

Maybe someone else has a better idea.

If you don't care about dawn to dusk timing, individual color channels, etc. Ignore all the above and I dunno what to tell you.

Thanks for the reply! Sure that's the one, sorry (I always forget that there is a different metric outside). If I understood correctly this led bars can be dimmed and each color channel controlled, either with a DIY device or with the one they sell, but I haven't checked out how much that would be.
Concerning the marine 3.0 I red in some posts here concerns about this being enough to grow sps. I am not planning to do so in the near future but I would like to choose next year without changing lights.
If I can I would like to keep the lid on, I really like the way it looks. Also it prevents evaporation a big deal (I will have to deal with temperature next summer but we'll deal with this when I cross that road, German summers are not that hot).

 

[chaostactics]

You may find this thread pretty helpful. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/fluval-marine-3-0-lighting-settings.686147/page-2#post-8425184

Per manufacturer

• At 3": PAR=390, LUX=17,120. At 12": PAR=102, LUX=4270. 2550 lumens.
• IP67 Waterproof certified

So you may have sufficient PAR to grow some basic SPS higher in your tank. If par is 360 at 3" probably still in that 200-300 PAR mid water. But I'm not entirely sure what the drop off for par is and it'll also depend on your water clarity.

I strongly prefer to be able to control my LEDs colors and cycles via WiFi or Blue tooth which is why I use Radion (high budget, super high quality) on my 80 gal and the Fluval Marine (surprisingly low-medium budget light, surprisingly high quality for the price) on the 5 gal nano build, see my build thread here.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/t...val-v-build-lots-of-pics.759346/#post-7973215

 

[KonradTO]

I think it says 10k lumens for the 75cm bar.. Isn't that a lot more PAR likely compared to the fluval?

 

[KonradTO]

So you may have sufficient PAR to grow some basic SPS higher in your tank.

That's the problem I suppose, if it's not enough for sps I fear that there will be not much space to add more lights later on and will end up being more expansive in the long term. What about making holes in the hood and adding some spot led lights like the ones that Attiland (sorry I can't find the quote command on my smartphone) suggested? Has anyone tried to direct spotlight selectively toward more requesting corals?

 

[attiland]

That's the problem I suppose, if it's not enough for sps I fear that there will be not much space to add more lights later on and will end up being more expansive in the long term. What about making holes in the hood and adding some spot led lights like the ones that Attiland (sorry I can't find the quote command on my smartphone) suggested? Has anyone tried to direct spotlight selectively toward more requesting corals?

If you start to cut the lid may as well get rid of it just put a meshed top to stop the jumpers. :)
you have to have ATO anyway and unless you are worried about humility in your room evaluation is not a factor.

I don’t want to defend my choice but AQUANEST can put out some serious PAR as per description I have the Aquanest plus M7. On AliExpress it was about £400 at the time. Comes with arm and hanging set too. Comes with LPS and SPS presets and I am happy with all the programs it has. I even can show of for guest some thunderstorms which is otherwise useless ;) I am happy with it anyway.

I do realise it is a bit higher budget than what you had in mind but I am against waisted money and after all my research I think you are going to swap your lights instead of buy your dream corals.

I was originally considering the so called Chinese black boxes and once added all features I had in mind but I’ve found you end up spending closer to £300-350 and you have disco effect and ugly shape for your savings.