Maxspect Ethereal lighting system beta testing

[Duality]

I RC I'm Eric
I recently was selected to beta text Maxspect's new lights and controller.
Well here's a little background about me and my tank, I'll try to keep it simple.
I've been in the hobby for a little over 15 years. My main love is acro. I have a 300 gallon peninsula reef that I had setup for 2 years and recently broke down and resetup. I had a magnet lech in the tank causing me to brake it down. So when I re-setup I started fresh, all new rock, sand, and corals.
For years I've been running radion gen 1's, five of them to be exact. I had great success with them too. Here's a few shots of my acros when my tank was running flawlessly

Here's a old tank shot

here's what it looks like today

Now that's out of the way on to the whole reason for this thread.
So the lights come in a nice box and I'd say packaged very well styrofoam holding each thing in place kinda like the gyres.

Each light comes with a power source, mounting bracket, hardware for bracket, and owner manual that in in a verity of different languages. I will get some pics and a video of the unboxing for you guys/gals.
On Thursday I received the ethereal lights along with the ICV6 wireless controller. Well had a busy day Friday so I didn't really have time to swap out all the lights but I did hook up 2 really quick to see what they looked like.

Well I got up pretty early this morning to switch out the lighting system. I started off by taking out the radions of the canopy. Then I took 3 of the ethereal's and assembled the mounting brackets. The two I had hooked up the day before I mounted on my euro brace. It looked pretty clean and was happy with them. But I knew sense it's a peninsula them might get in the way when I'm doing maintenance or messing with corals. Well sense I'm the type that believes if anything is harder then it should be, then there is more of a chance it won't get done. So got to thinking if there was a way to hang the lights in my canopy. I know Maxspect makes a hanging kit for the lights but sense they're really not available in the US market yet I figured it might take some time to get the hanging kits. So I took the mounting bracket that comes with the light and flipped it around. So that the lights would drop down. Like so

Installing the 3 ethereal's took me less then an hour. I do have a forth ethereal but I haven't unboxed it yet waiting on buddy to video it so I can post it for everyone. After intalling I powered on the ICV6 wireless controller. I had already downloaded the iOS app to my iPhone a few days before.
Let me recommend that a new user read the quick tip help menu located in the app at the top of the screen, it's the ( ? ) icon

 

[Duality]

Let me say connecting and programming the lights is a breeze. I literally had the lights linked to the ICV6 within a minute. Then had them fully programmed within 10 minutes.
No PC required or linking the ICV6 to a home router first. All that is needed it is the lights, the ICV6 wireless controller, and a wireless device like android or Apple iOS. Have the Maxspect app downloaded on said device too.
So start off by powering on the lights and ICV6. Then go into the settings function of your device(well sense I used my iPhone I'm going to go with iPhone). After in setting go into wifi center and there should be a Maxspect wifi signal that u connect to. (Yes the ICV6 can act like a router and send out its own signal). After your iPhone has linked on the Maxspect signal u exit the setting app and open the Maxspect app. It will instantly pull up the ICV6 and show the lights (and soon gyre 200 series). The lights will show up being unlinked. The first thing u need to do it link the lights to the ICV6.

After the lights are linked u can start messing with the spectrum and power. But before creating a program schedule u will first need to create a group by clicking on the body figure icon

Name your group and select the lights you want in the group by selecting the check mark across from the lights name then tapping the check mark by the groups name.

Now that the group is created you can start programming a schedule by selecting the gear icon on the group

To start tap on the 1 and set your desired start time. This first data point should have every light channel at 0% so that the light will be off prior to that data point. Then start filling in your data points and creating your own personal schedule. The last point should end with every channel at 0% so the lights will stay off for the night. Now here's a hint think carefully how u enter your data points cause u can move them to place before or after another data point. For example say u have a 10 o'clock and a 11 o'clock data point already. But u want to add a 10:30. You can't add a 10:30 u would have to turn the 11 into 10:30.
Now after your program is created just click on the check make towards the bottom of the screen and now the lights are programmed. That's it.
Not to mess with the lights u can select the manual icon in the tool bar

And that will take u too this screen

This will let u mess with the spectrum of the lights
Now for the RGB mood light in the fans u want to select the RGB mood in the tool bar. It will take u to this screen

And u can see what looks good to u.
Here is a FTS with the 3 ethereal lights.

I will have the 4th one on it tomorrow and I'll show how the spread looks with all four ethereal lights on a 300 gallon eight foot tank.

 

[Duality]

Any others out there with the ethereal lights? How do u like them so far?
I'm lovin them so far. Noticing importantly in my sps in just a week.
Here's a little video I did of the unboxing and setting up
https://youtu.be/CJtpexaQHYk
Also this shows how quick the lights are to setup with the icv6
https://youtu.be/QJrl2OuAWWk
And how the tank looks with the ethereal light
https://youtu.be/ZuskAnTjDb8

 

[MHG]

So any updates. any par measurements? How are the sps doing in comparison?

 

[Duality]

Update time
Well I ended up taking down this tank again. I found my self falling out of love with the hobby after taking down my 300 the first time. After redoing the 300 I would just get depressed every time I looked at the tank. I didn't want to wait another year or two to see the 300 filled and beautiful with corals. So ended up taking down the 300 and settled into a 155. Even after setting up the 155 I had go love for the hobby. I really only setup the 155 so my wife could keep her purple tang. When setting up the 155 i set it up that it wouldn't take much effort to keep it running. I had a calrx for dosing and a 55 gallon drum for ato. I literally would go weeks with out clean the glass and doing any maintenance on the tank. I developed a mad case of gha during this time. But a few weeks ago I had a friend break down and give me all his sps. Well that lite a flame under my butt and got me back in the mood to clean my tank up.
So here's a tank pic from a few months ago when I setup the 155

I sense then made a hanging canopy for the ethereals. When I first set up the 155 I set the ethereals at a 100% everything like I use to run my radions. Well my sps kept staying pale and weren't developing colors. So around December I decided to mess with the colors spectrum a bit. I've been running them at around 70% lately and now my colors are starting to pop.
Here is my current lights schedule

Here is a current tank shoot of the 155

 

[Duality]

Maxspect Ethereal lighting system beta testing

Here a few pics to show the growth under the ethereals
Red planet
9/19/16

1/26/17

Blue stag
9/19/16

1/15/17

 

[Rambo610]

How did you get to beta test?

 

[Duality]

How did you get to beta test?

There was a drawling on there Facebook page. But I was also a beta for the gyres.


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[brianbrainstein]

Are you still enjoying the lights? I love the way they look. I'm currently running Chinese black boxes, but may want to upgrade to these in the next six months. There are two reasons I'm considering this. One, I'd like more control over my lights. Two, I don't want to build a hood for my tank and these look great.


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[Duality]

Yes I am still currently using the ethereals over my tank. I did end up putting the lights in a floating canyon tho
Here's an up to date pic of the tank

 

[brianbrainstein]

Looks good, corals look happy! Thanks for the update


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