Reef Brite LED's available in Canada

[Ron99]

Originally Posted by Jaws

So what depth are you suggesting they would be good for?

Not sure if this question was directed at me? If so, the answer is I have no idea. I don't know the specs of the specific LEDs they are using nor the actual drive current (but from the power consumption of the strips I am guessing about 500mA). The only way to really know is to measure PAR in a tank at different depths. These look plenty bright on a small aquarium using 4 strips for a total of 24 LEDs at $600+ and may work great for the Cardiff application. On a bigger, deeper tank? I don't know.

[PFoster]

Yeah the 4 Reef brite strips is overkill, there is no question about that but I personally love the deep blue color. You will notice that for our test we used 2 50/50 strips and 2 blue strips. So we have only 25% dayight and 75% actinic LED's. This trim kit with the Reef Brite LED's is going on a riccordea tank though so for the corals that we are keeping in the tank we dont need the intensity and tons of blue make the ric's look just awsome.

Now as for feild testing we are doing that right now and on larger tank.

We have been running the Reef Brite LED strips as soley a suplimentation addition for a while now and I have comparison pics that will convinve to to go with LED's as supplimentation in a heart beat. And as purely a supliment to the primary lighting sounce the Reef Brites have been selling 10 fold to the dalights.

We do have an installer in the GTA installing these LED's on tanks that are 24" deep and tanks that are 30" deep. He did actually raise a question that follows a bit of what you were saying there Ron99, which was is there a way he can increase the power to each LED to 3W so that he can use fewer strips? I dont have an answer to this yet but I will post it if/when I do.

Locally we do have a few hobbiests here that are trying the Reef Brite LED's as the sole primary light sourse and so far they are very happy. All of these tanks are 90g and under but realistically thats the average size of most tanks out there.

Now we are also testing the LED's as a sole light source on one of our frag tank and so far so good!
Frag tanks are not very deep, but we are not using a lot of light either.

I am sure Ron99 is aware of this, but one of the issues with LED's is cooling. Thats why most of the units out there come with great big, massive heat sinks. If the unit is not properly cooled the drivers overheat and the light will prematurely fail. This is why the Reef Brite strips underdrive their LED's. You will also notice that the LED's do not go all the way along the full length of the fixture. Instead they are in sections of 6 LED's. As an added bonus though, as the LED's are not the full length of the Strip the shimmer that comes off of these strips is excellent!

[DiverDude]

Originally Posted by PFoster

Yeah LED's are rather pricey, but it is our opinion that the Reef Brite LED strips are VERY well priced especially for a product that is made in the US and NOT in china.

Here are some prices for you:
15" $150-170
24" $205-235
36" $235-270
48" $270-300

So at their current price you are coming in at just above $1000 for LED's today!

Mmmmm....not quite ! In some applications, absolutely; in others (i.e. deeper tanks) probably not -yet.

I think Ron99 has the right view on this in that until the manufacturers start publishing PAR numbers, the consumer will always be left trying to compare apples to oranges.

From a business perspective, I understand how it can be appealing for a marketing department to obfuscate details to a degree but if LEDs are really going to make quick headway in the market, aquarists will need (and hopefully demand) data that will allow them to select an appropriate product for their setup.

Perhaps as a distributor, they may take some of these comments from you and actually listen ? One can only hope !

[PFoster]

I have already emailed Reef Brite to request any info that they have on PAR output. We do have a copy of the spectral output of the strips, but right now its a printed copy with a small graph.
As for PAR output, these strips are supposed to have double the PAR output of an ATI Blue Plus with reflectors, but as for actual numbers I dont have those on hand at this time. I dont suppose anyone here has a PAR meter?


Here is a link for the Reef Brites being used as a suplimentation on a large tank for you:
http://reefbuilders.com/2010/01/04/r...-feet-of-reef/

And here is another link to them in action on a deep tank with tons of halide lighting:
http://reefbuilders.com/2009/12/18/r...ep-reef-tanks/

[OceanicCorals-Ian-]

We have sold a few of these ReefBrite strips and so far I have been pretty impressed. We have a few in stock and a few more on the way from Reef Wholesale if anyone is interested in purchasing.

[PFoster]

Do you have a pic of one of these running on a tank Ian?

I do have a comparison pic I can post.
Here is a picture of one of the acans in our coral bed. On the right side you see what the piece looks like under a ATI Power module running with 4 Blue Plus lamps only (whites were off for the pic).
The left half is the ATI Blue Plus + 1 Reef Brite LED strip.

[OceanicCorals-Ian-]

Originally Posted by PFoster

Do you have a pic of one of these running on a tank Ian?

I do have a comparison pic I can post.
Here is a picture of one of the acans in our coral bed. On the right side you see what the piece looks like under a ATI Power module running with 4 Blue Plus lamps only (whites were off for the pic).
The left half is the ATI Blue Plus + 1 Reef Brite LED strip.

Wow, great pictures, the increased fluorescing of the Coral is very noticeable. I don't have any comparisons but I can work on getting some for you. There was an article on Reef Builders not too long ago that showed a 300+ gallon tank lit by nothing but ReefBrite strips.

[PFoster]

Originally Posted by PFoster

Here is a link for the Reef Brites being used as a suplimentation on a large tank for you:
http://reefbuilders.com/2010/01/04/r...-feet-of-reef/

And here is another link to them in action on a deep tank with tons of halide lighting:
http://reefbuilders.com/2009/12/18/r...ep-reef-tanks/

Are these the ones you were thinking of?

[burrows14]

I have one 48" blue on order from Ian and should have it running within a couple of weeks Cant wait to see how these look!. Ill be using them as actinics only and am not expecting any par out of them but it would be a plus. I will be runing them with 2 250w xm 10k's

[OceanicCorals-Ian-]

Originally Posted by PFoster

Are these the ones you were thinking of?

Oops! yeah, how observant of me.....