Reef Brite LED's available in Canada

[PFoster]

Well if "the proof is in the pudding" then here are some pics for you.

To try these lights out we took two well established Current USA Cardiff aquariums here in Ottawa. Up to this point both tanks had been running 1 x 150W Metal with Phoenix lamps. These tanks are in a sun room, on either side of a gas fireplace as you will shortly see in pictures that follow.

On one tank (that will appear on the left in the comparison picture) we left the tank as is, running the Current USA 150W metal halide on the Current USA ballast. We connected the halide to a Blue Planet EM100 energy meter and we found that the continual power consumption once the ballast had been running for 17 min was very steady at 164W.

On the second tank (that will appear on the right in the comparison picture) we took the Cardiff trim kit and mounted 2 x 15" 50/50 Reef Brite LED strips in the center and on either side we mounted 2 x 15" Actinic Reef Brite LED strips. Although it has no impact on this test, we mounted attached the LED strips together in pairs (one 50/50 and one actinic) and attached each pair to a set of hinges to make it easier to access the tank in the future. For the purpose of the test we did not take the stock 150W metal halide pendant down off the tank as this would require us to move it away from the wall and for the purpose of testing out the lights, this seemed like a bit much.

Here is a top view of the light mounted in the trip kit for the Cardiff:

Here is a side view of the light mounted in the trip kit for the Cardiff:

As you can see in the picture the LED's are running, not the halide.


To connect all 4 of the Reef Brite LED power supplies into the one energy meter we connected them all to a power bar with a built in time that would be used after this test to control the lighting.

Then we connected the power bar to a second Blue Planet EM100 energy meter and found that the power consumption was steady at 53 watts as soon as it was turned on. In all fairness we did forget to take a picture of the max power consumption but it was 54 watts.

So now after all of this reading I suppose you want a shot of the tanks
Well here they are.

We took this picture from a slightly elevated position so that you could see the Reef Brite LED strips on top of the right hand tank and so that you could see that the halide suspended there was not actually running.

In the pictures above the left hand tank is running a 150W metal halide with a Phoenix lamp while the right hand tank is running 4 x 15" Reef Brite LED's.

In our opinion it is clear that the right hand tank, running the LED's is significantly brights in intensity than the halide tank and most importantly the color is still very similar.