LED light from ebay for reefs?

i just got my last 2 today, i haven't compared them all side by side yet, but the 1 i got yesterday looked great! It didn't look to blue at all and seem to be exactly like the reefkoi ones. I'm going to try and get them mounted today and see if i can get a pic up. When i held the 1 over the tank i thought it looked great! not to blue at all. I'm just debating the best way to hang them, running side to side or back to front...
 
Cool Bigdog look forward to seeing the pics. I am getting ready to pull the trigger as well, but have been waiting for some good pics/reviews to convince me. :bounce3:
 
ok so just finishing installing them and WOW! They look great, so much better then have i had!!! Everything is glowing, i'm in the middle of uploading the pics to photobucket so you guys can see them. I have to say the color temp is perfect in my opinon, i wouldn't want it any bluer, i think it looks pretty close to 20k to me, maybe somewhere between 14k and 20k. If i have anything bad to say its that i wish the fans had a seprate switch. They aren't LOUD but not quiet either, no worse then on any other none retro fit fixture...
 
ok, sorry lots of them!! or your welcome!

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Just whites
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Just Blue
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Please take into account that i had no lights on the tank for about 2 hours while i was mounting the leds so most of the corals closed up and are back in wake up mode
 
here is a crappy little video i shot real quick with my camera!

<embed width="600" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullscreen="true" allowNetworking="all" wmode="transparent" src="http://static.photobucket.com/player.swf" flashvars="file=http%3A%2F%2Fvid42.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fe321%2Fbigdog0598%2FM4H01791.mp4">
 
I'd have to have them about 3-4 inches off my water line because my hood is short.

But I'm not too worried about coverage at the ends of the tank up high because it has corner overflows and my rock is in the middle.

Here's my setup
Picture021.jpg
 
I've seen these available to order by bulk from China. The issues I've seen with them is that they are 1w LEDs (Semi/Bridgelux) which isn't bad but not optimal for tanks over 16-20" in depth if you want a SPS tank. The other issue was the amount of watts actually being pulled. If I remember correctly they pulled more wattage than listed.

Does anyone have a PAR meter reading for these guys yet?
 
Looks good bigdog, it definitely does not look as blue as some of the other pics I have seen with the other 20K LED's I have seen. The color looks real similar to like a 20K radium to me, it even looks as if you have some glitter lines. How is the build quality on the fixtures?
 
Well.. I decided to return mine. I went to a LFS yesterday who has several LED set ups from different manufactures up and running on large tanks and found one that is exactly what I want. Of course it will cost more than twice as much as this unit. But if I get the units from the LFS I wont need to run my VHOs to try and compensate for the blue glow I experience with this unit. And the difference in electricity, bulb replacement, and cooling will pay for the more expensive LEDs in about 3 years. Done deal. I wish I could report that I was as happy with this unit as others here. I've read other threads that talked about the lot numbers being different and that different LED color temps were used. Who knows. But I gotta go with what works for me. I wish I could have reported something different. Best of luck to everyone.
 
karsco said:
Looks good bigdog, it definitely does not look as blue as some of the other pics I have seen with the other 20K LED's I have seen. The color looks real similar to like a 20K radium to me, it even looks as if you have some glitter lines. How is the build quality on the fixtures?
Click to expand...

It really does look like a 20k bulb, good amount of blue in my opinon
 
looser said:
Well.. I decided to return mine. I went to a LFS yesterday who has several LED set ups from different manufactures up and running on large tanks and found one that is exactly what I want. Of course it will cost more than twice as much as this unit. But if I get the units from the LFS I wont need to run my VHOs to try and compensate for the blue glow I experience with this unit. And the difference in electricity, bulb replacement, and cooling will pay for the more expensive LEDs in about 3 years. Done deal. I wish I could report that I was as happy with this unit as others here. I've read other threads that talked about the lot numbers being different and that different LED color temps were used. Who knows. But I gotta go with what works for me. I wish I could have reported something different. Best of luck to everyone.
Click to expand...

Which company did you end up buying?
 
ykagan said:
Which company did you end up buying?
Click to expand...

To make a short story long. The LEDs I got from ebay looked kind of like I was putting things under a black light. Not really that bad, but heading in that direction. The color temperature just didn't look natural. Although others seem very happy with them here, and the guy selling them (Paul) was a total pleasure to do business with. He took a return with no problems at all and apologized that I wasn't happy with the unit. I wish he carried other brands/products.

I think it might be a matter of luck if you get one that has good color or not depending on which batch of LEDs they used in China to make the unit. Thats just a guess. The ebay unit also didn't have any lenses on the LEDs. They are just open LEDs mounted on a reflective backing. So some of the light is wasted out the side of the unit, and there is not a lot of penetration to the deepest part of the tank, which is an issue for me given my tank is 30" deep. I probably could have made the unit work for me by fooling with the mix of VHO bulbs, but my original objective was to replace all my lighting with LEDs.

The units I found at the LFS are EcoRays. They come in two flavors 112 and 60 LEDs per unit. First the color temperature is very much like day light shining off a shallow reef (I scuba dive so I know what it looks like). They also have lenses on the LEDs so the light isn't wasted, and the bottom of my tank is very bright. LEDs tend to be bright directly under the units but then coverage falls off quickly. With the Eco Rays (as I suspect with any other unit using optics) the coverage is wider because the LEDs are spaced further apart, (the unit is physically bigger) and because of the optics I can mount them higher above the water and still get good penetration, so the coverage is quite a bit wider than the ebay units. The bad news is that ecorays are about twice as expensive as the ebay units. I guess if you didn't need a lot of deep penetrating light, and wanted to take a chance on the color temp, you don't have a lot to loose by trying the ebay units given the great service, but obviously I think the ecorays are worth the difference in price.

Just one note. What I found is that LEDs (in both cases) give a more harsh look than MH. Very bright like MH, but with out the softer edges that MH provides. So to get a more natural look, even with MH, it makes sense to have a lot of water movement at the surface so you get a nice natural look of sun reflecting off the reef.

I hope that helps.
 
BTW... I cut my wattage for lighting from 700 to 300 (2x120 + 60) and gained about 1/3 more light.
 
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