Which Chinese black box led?

[Elo500]

Looking no to replace my t5s over my 4' 120g mostly softie tank. I think two 165w boxes would do but which ones?

Seems like there are several name brand leds and some no name leds. Is there really any difference ?

As far as features, is built in timer or wifi really worth extra $? Do the timers usually have battery backup or do you have to reset after power outage?

 

[Ron Reefman]

The answer is yes and no!

There are differences in some of the black boxes. Some have steel cases (rust) and some use aluminum, some come with just hanging kits and some come with hangers and removable, adjustable legs, some use cheap fans (noise) and some use good fans, some have a sheet of aluminum for a heatsink (cheap and less effective) and some have real heatsinks.

The built-in timer AND digital dimming control (not a sunrise/sunset controller.. just digital dimming) is nice. And yes, they use a replaceable battery. But my Ocean Revive and Reef Breeders fixtures are 3 and 4 years old, have run 24/7 and they still have the original batteries. And they do keep good time and hold info during a power outage.

Is it worth the cost? Not my call. But the units with built-in timers tend to be the better made units with all the better hardware inside and out.

You might also look at the 32" versions of a couple of the black box providers as an alternative to buying and mounting 2 fixtures.

 

[greenvrod06]

love my ocean revives

 

[scooter31707]

I am satisfied with my Mars Aqua lights.

 

[gonzalezvacaeli]

SB reef lights are the bang for you buck

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

 

[ajm83]

I have Mars Aqua, they are fine but I've swapped a few LEDs to get the colour more to my tastes.

The white channel is quite warm, and the blue channel is very BLUE! So I swapped some blues to violets (420nm) and some warm whites and the coloured LEDs to 20 + 30K indiglo whites and UVs (395nm).

It was an easy job to solder them in, however if I had a chance to buy again, I would look for some with more purples on the blue channel and less warm whites.