K**E
A Great Value
I bought a Biocube HQI about 9 months ago. I had thought that the Metal Halide lights would be great. But they raise the tank temperature by several degrees (which makes it hard to control temperature without a chiller). I didn't have any color control other than changing the bulb. And the bulbs are really expensive. Rather than sink money into a chiller I thought I'd look into replacing the stock light with an LED lightI'd hoped for a turnkey replacement light that would just mount onto my HQI. I found a couple but they didn't meet my needs. I wanted something that I could control with my Apex. This limits the candidates. I also wanted something that wasn't ugly (which takes DIY out of the picture). So after a lot of research I picked this light. It's affordable (most LED's with these features are about $200 more, have less light output and require additional modules for Apex control). It has good features, good customer service, a great price and seems generally well regarded.I set it up this weekend (after building a light fixture for hanging the LED out of bent conduit). The result is great. I wish I'd made the change much earlier. The LED make my coral's colors pop. I also have control of the color. I prefer a whiter light than the onyx fixture outputs by default, so I just adjust the output of each color with my controller. Since the Onyx produces more light than I need, I can sacrifice a bit of brightness for the colors I want.I was seriously put off by having to build a hanger for the light. I didn't want to drill into the wall or hang the light from the ceiling. I didn't find a reasonable clamp system for the HQI and I didn't want to re-purpose the existing HQI light. So, I found an article online about bending conduit to make very nice looking light fixtures and spent about 2 hours on that Saturday. It was easy and the result looks surprisingly professional for such little effort. So if that's an issue for you check out the article on reefkeeping.com about this.One other thing is that programming a dimmable light with an Apex is a challenge. The Apex is not at all intuitive on how to control lights (other than off and on). I probably have 3 hours into figuring that out. Using seasonal times with dimmable lights is a bit of a challenge but it's possible. All-in-all, I'm happy with the results and learn a bunch in the process.One downside is I'd hoped to use this as a moonlight. However, at it's lowest setting the blue lights are too bright. This is a minor issue for me and that degree of dimming is not specified by the manufacturer. So, I'm not holding that against RapidLED.[10/22/2014]It's a year later. The fixture is still working great. My fish are doing well and looking good. I couldn't be happier with this fixture. I'd definitely buy this again if I build up another tank.
Trustpilot
1 week ago
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