Reefbreeder photon v2
- Thread starter RyuMcDohl
- Start date
Hentz
New member
Ron Reefman will be commenting on this soon!
I've only had the first generation of Reefbreeder's with amazing success with my Acro's. My frogspawn went from 13 to about 20 in just a few months under them. I loved them. As I've said before on other posts, I can only imagine what the new ones are capable of!
But like I said, Ron will most likely be touching base on this post soon. He's had some seemingly great experience with the lights!
Cheers.
I've only had the first generation of Reefbreeder's with amazing success with my Acro's. My frogspawn went from 13 to about 20 in just a few months under them. I loved them. As I've said before on other posts, I can only imagine what the new ones are capable of!
But like I said, Ron will most likely be touching base on this post soon. He's had some seemingly great experience with the lights!
Cheers.
Ron Reefman
Active member
OK, so as Hentz said, I'm a big fan of the Reef Breeders/EverGrow V2 fixtures. :thumbsup:
I had 3 EverGrow IT fixtures (same as the original Photon but mine had custom colors) for over 4 years and they did a very good job over my 180g sps/lps reef and a 75g anemone/gorgonian tank. I'm still using 2 of them over other tanks now and sold the 3rd. They are about as good as a 2 channel Chinese black box design could be 4 years ago.
Last August my 180g developed a leak that couldn't be stopped. So I downsized to a new 125g CADlight tank that is 60" long and my 32" EG fixtures were too long. So I splurged and got the new Reef Breeders Photon V2 50" fixture. What can I say, it's almost everything I had hoped for. My old sps & lps corals are in the new tank and doing just fine 5 months into the maturing tank process.
I wanted a refugium but the CADlight sump wasn't big enough for me, so I built a 50g 2'x2'x20" cube and set it up as a display refugium and ordered a second V2 but this time just a 16" fixture.
The 6 channels of color control is great, not that your corals need it, but it allows you to tune the light to look the way you want it to look. The sunrise/sunset/moonlight control isn't the fastest thing in the world to program, but it's WAY better than the original Photon and I'd have spent 2 to 4 times more money for AI or EcoTech fixture for these 2 tanks. Radions would have cost $3000 to $3600 (I'd need 4) and I spent $950 for V2's.
Would my corals grow any faster? No. Would the customer service be any better? No. Would the fixtures have run cooler? No. Would the look (aesthetics) of my tank be better? Heck no, the single V2 looks way better than 3 AI or Radion fixtures. Would they last longer? Maybe, but it's 4 to 8 years too soon to tell? Could I reprogram them easier? Yes. But then is that really worth $2000+? I can find better places to spend that money.
RyuMcDohl, if you end up with a V2 fixture, I'd be happy to share all my set up info. The basics are, I run a 5 hour sunrise, 4 hour midday, 6 hour sunset and a little moonlight for an hour after sunset and an hour before sunrise. Does that help the corals grow? Heck no. But I love watching the tank evolve during the day. Over a 20" deep tank, with old growth coral (6 years in my other tank), well acclimated sps & lps corals (4+ years under leds), my midday is 90% on both blue channels and 40% on the white. My corals are growing and seem quite healthy. And I'm considering dialing the lights back about 10% to 15% to see if there is any real change. I keep reading and hearing from experts that PAR of 200 at the sand and 450 at the top of my rocks is more than the corals really need.
It's not that I think the RB V2 is the best led fixture out there, it most certainly is NOT! But IMHO, it's far, far and away the best value for your dollar IF (and that's a huge IF) you want 6 channel color control and sunrise/sunset control. And I readily admit that neither of those is necessary in order to grow healthy coral with an led fixture. Both are 95% for my pleasure and 5% for the tank.
I had 3 EverGrow IT fixtures (same as the original Photon but mine had custom colors) for over 4 years and they did a very good job over my 180g sps/lps reef and a 75g anemone/gorgonian tank. I'm still using 2 of them over other tanks now and sold the 3rd. They are about as good as a 2 channel Chinese black box design could be 4 years ago.
Last August my 180g developed a leak that couldn't be stopped. So I downsized to a new 125g CADlight tank that is 60" long and my 32" EG fixtures were too long. So I splurged and got the new Reef Breeders Photon V2 50" fixture. What can I say, it's almost everything I had hoped for. My old sps & lps corals are in the new tank and doing just fine 5 months into the maturing tank process.
I wanted a refugium but the CADlight sump wasn't big enough for me, so I built a 50g 2'x2'x20" cube and set it up as a display refugium and ordered a second V2 but this time just a 16" fixture.
The 6 channels of color control is great, not that your corals need it, but it allows you to tune the light to look the way you want it to look. The sunrise/sunset/moonlight control isn't the fastest thing in the world to program, but it's WAY better than the original Photon and I'd have spent 2 to 4 times more money for AI or EcoTech fixture for these 2 tanks. Radions would have cost $3000 to $3600 (I'd need 4) and I spent $950 for V2's.
Would my corals grow any faster? No. Would the customer service be any better? No. Would the fixtures have run cooler? No. Would the look (aesthetics) of my tank be better? Heck no, the single V2 looks way better than 3 AI or Radion fixtures. Would they last longer? Maybe, but it's 4 to 8 years too soon to tell? Could I reprogram them easier? Yes. But then is that really worth $2000+? I can find better places to spend that money.
RyuMcDohl, if you end up with a V2 fixture, I'd be happy to share all my set up info. The basics are, I run a 5 hour sunrise, 4 hour midday, 6 hour sunset and a little moonlight for an hour after sunset and an hour before sunrise. Does that help the corals grow? Heck no. But I love watching the tank evolve during the day. Over a 20" deep tank, with old growth coral (6 years in my other tank), well acclimated sps & lps corals (4+ years under leds), my midday is 90% on both blue channels and 40% on the white. My corals are growing and seem quite healthy. And I'm considering dialing the lights back about 10% to 15% to see if there is any real change. I keep reading and hearing from experts that PAR of 200 at the sand and 450 at the top of my rocks is more than the corals really need.
It's not that I think the RB V2 is the best led fixture out there, it most certainly is NOT! But IMHO, it's far, far and away the best value for your dollar IF (and that's a huge IF) you want 6 channel color control and sunrise/sunset control. And I readily admit that neither of those is necessary in order to grow healthy coral with an led fixture. Both are 95% for my pleasure and 5% for the tank.
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