b4tn
Valuable Member
*Disclaimer*
I am far from a lighting expert. My first reef tank back in 2000 was a 55 gallon with a pair of MH and pair of T5's. When I moved to Germany I sold it and had started a 40 gallon planted tank that 4 T5's. When I finally got back home and started another reef in 2015 I did not have the cash available for high end lights so opted for two Ocean Revive LED's. The OR lights have served me well and everything I have put under them has grown and grown well. My complaints where lack of control and they did not provide the color pop fish and corals have under high end lights. Everything I have learned and am learning about LED lighting, or lighting period! Is through trial and error and from reading on these forums.
So I had saved up enough to upgrade my lights and was going to get a pair of Ecotech XR30 G4 Pro's with diffusers. By the time you get the lights, wifi module, and mounting arms the price was $2,123.00. While I was asking around I had several people mention Reefi which I had never heard of and I initially discounted it thinking they where just higher end Chinese black boxes. The day I had the radions in my cart and was about to order them I ran across this thread.
www.reef2reef.com
Not only where the ReeFi lights "not" glorified black boxes they have more LED's, more channels, and where a lot cheaper than the Radions. They use CREE XP-E2 and LUMILED’s Luxeon Rebel LED's and they had some of the core features I wanted like an acclimation mode, an automatic moon phase, the ability to control all lights as one, and the ability to fine tune any color you want.
Using the $100 off sale I picked up a pair for $1300 shipped. With the money I saved I bought an Apogee SQ-520 PAR sensor that was also on sale at BRS with a stick for around $300.
The interface is web based and was pretty easy to set up. I did have an issue initially with one of my lights. I have never had this happen on my home network before but the light was picking up the same IP as my wifi extender causing an IP conflict. This was an easy fix by just statically assigning the IP's which the instructions recommend anyway. Initially installed and for the time I have re used my home made bent conduit Ocean Revive mounts. They are not super pretty but they work for now until I come up with something else. I was worried about the mount blocking the fan but was told that the lights where tested with the surface covered 1/2" above the fan. The mount is about 1/4" above the mount and very minimally block flow. So far no issues whatsoever.
Once I had them mounted, turned on, and firmware update, I had to run and pick my son up from work. This was so far the only issue I have had with the lights. When I got home I found the glass on one of the lights sitting on my screen top with the lenses on top.
It looked like the glue holding one of the magnets on had let go or it was jostled during shipping. I messaged Daniel at ReeFi and within 5 minutes he responded that it was probably an issue with shipping and recommended a small dab of superglue gel. I did this and let it cure over night and so far no more issues.
This being my first light with full control over everything has been a bit challenging. My first attempt at a schedule I adjusted on my own and put in place. The picture below was taken with the OR lights. Red numbers where the PAR readings from the OR light with blue set to 90 and white set to 20. The yellow numbers where the readings from the Extremes dialed way down to a 123 watt peak to try and match my OR lights. You can tell from the pic that spread is a little bit better (I am limited due to the black center brace on my tank) but wow! This light packs a punch! At just over half power its nearly at the visually appealing OR max setting. When I say visually appealing I mean that I could get more PAR from the OR light by cranking up the whites more but then the tank starts looking overly white and yellow.
I was not happy with my initial home brew settings and ramp period. I decided since I do plan on having SPS near the top I needed to adjust it for some more PAR. I downloaded the config file from the ReeFi facebook group and loaded it on my light. Took some initial PAR readings and I was getting 380-400 PAR on top of my rocks!
Using this as the base and my PAR meter I basically lowered each channel in equal parts until I was reading 300 PAR at my central highest point. I still need to do a full tank PAR snap shot, Maybe this weekend. In the end I dont have a screen shot but my schedule is identical to this one but the peak is 152 watts and day and after points are 143 watts. I have my acclimation mode set to run at 70% and ramp to 100% over 30 days.
At this setting it does run pretty purple looking. I am still tweaking and have discovered that adding a touch more lime kind of lowers the purple hue a bit. In the pics it looks very purple but its just the way the camera picks it up. In real life it does have a purple tint but not over the top like in the pics. These pics are kind of crappy, I recently moved and I could not find my tripod. They are taken with a canon EOS Rebel with a 300 MM lens hand held. The tank is only about 3 months old transplanted from my old reef and I have bleached all the rock to start fresh. I will try and get some better shots when i find my tripod.
Over all I am very impressed. These lights are super powerful and I am positive you can adjust any color combo you want and still have tons of PAR. The Reeflectors are pretty amazing. I get virtually no side glare at all and can watch a movie on my TV right next to the tank at peak power with no issues. Its strange standing at the side of the tank and it looks like the lights are on low power from the side. The light spread and blending is top notch without sacrificing PAR by using a defflector. With my black boxes I had to raise the lights 13" off the water to avoid red and green spots on the rocks and sand. It worked... Kind of but with these lights I lowered them to 9.5" off the water surface and I have ZERO disco affect.
So the Cons
- I am very leary of the glass now that I had one fall off. I work on cars as a hobby and using a rear view Mirror as an example its very hard to keep it glued to glass. ReeFi offers 3D printed light mounts that look like they clip over the glass and I think I would feel better having a clip holding it in place.
- I dont have anything to compare since I have not had any other higher end lights but I feel like it is a bit clunky. Once it was explained to me I was able to grasp the concept though. A line graph would be nice for the ramp schedule but its not really necessary.
- Not really a con but could be for some. If you like tons of shimmer these lights have a very muted shimmer affect. Me personally, I thought I wanted lots of shimmer till this weekend. I was at my LFS and their mother tank was lit with a kessil AP700. The lighting and color was brilliant like the ReeFi but the shimmer looked like an acid trip.
- No over all brightness slider. Brightness is controlled by adjusting the wattage of each individual color. once the desire color is achieved if PAR is low or high you have to adjust each individual color up or down. To get around this I set the color I liked and used the acclimation mode to dial down the over all power till I reached a desired PAR reading.
And the Pros
- Power! With 72 LED's its hard for anything to beat
- Color channels are also amazing. The typical Red and Green are replaced with PC-Amber and Lime and there is an additional Violet LED. The lime really helps visually balance blues and purples out and the PC-Amber helps the brightness and gives a good color to the fish.
- With the Reeflectors the side glare is gone and blending and shadowing issues with LED's seem to be a thing of the past. The lack of shadowing is not as good as straight T5's but it is better than ANY LED I have ever seen in person. I bought these with intentions of supplementing with T5's in the future and I dont think I will be doing that now. I am not sure why the industry standard uses lenses still.
- I know I put this in the cons but the interface is also super powerful. It may be a bit of a learning curve but with 10 channels of set points, the ability adjust brightness in .01 increments, and control over ramping time you can configure just about anything type of scenario for lighting schedule.
- Support is top notch. Every question I had was answered by Daniel himself or others on the reefi facebook group. It is also nice to know I have a 3 year warranty on the lights.
- The interface is evolving. Daniel seems very involved with the development of the interface. I found a minor issue with the resume function and pointed it out. Again within 5 minutes I had a response that a fix should be in the next firmware update.
I am over all very happy with this light and would recommend it to anyone. I have been drooling over Radions for years and was reluctant to pull the trigger on these but I am happy I did and would do it again. #ReeFiLove
I am far from a lighting expert. My first reef tank back in 2000 was a 55 gallon with a pair of MH and pair of T5's. When I moved to Germany I sold it and had started a 40 gallon planted tank that 4 T5's. When I finally got back home and started another reef in 2015 I did not have the cash available for high end lights so opted for two Ocean Revive LED's. The OR lights have served me well and everything I have put under them has grown and grown well. My complaints where lack of control and they did not provide the color pop fish and corals have under high end lights. Everything I have learned and am learning about LED lighting, or lighting period! Is through trial and error and from reading on these forums.
So I had saved up enough to upgrade my lights and was going to get a pair of Ecotech XR30 G4 Pro's with diffusers. By the time you get the lights, wifi module, and mounting arms the price was $2,123.00. While I was asking around I had several people mention Reefi which I had never heard of and I initially discounted it thinking they where just higher end Chinese black boxes. The day I had the radions in my cart and was about to order them I ran across this thread.
Interesting 'New' LED Light
I just received two ReeFi LED lights for testing purposes. This company has been around for a while, but it is new to me, and I'm impressed with the thoughtful design. There are 72 LEDs in the array including cool white, warm white, amber, lime, blue, royal blue, violet, 420nm and 400nm, each on...
www.reef2reef.com
Not only where the ReeFi lights "not" glorified black boxes they have more LED's, more channels, and where a lot cheaper than the Radions. They use CREE XP-E2 and LUMILED’s Luxeon Rebel LED's and they had some of the core features I wanted like an acclimation mode, an automatic moon phase, the ability to control all lights as one, and the ability to fine tune any color you want.
Using the $100 off sale I picked up a pair for $1300 shipped. With the money I saved I bought an Apogee SQ-520 PAR sensor that was also on sale at BRS with a stick for around $300.
The interface is web based and was pretty easy to set up. I did have an issue initially with one of my lights. I have never had this happen on my home network before but the light was picking up the same IP as my wifi extender causing an IP conflict. This was an easy fix by just statically assigning the IP's which the instructions recommend anyway. Initially installed and for the time I have re used my home made bent conduit Ocean Revive mounts. They are not super pretty but they work for now until I come up with something else. I was worried about the mount blocking the fan but was told that the lights where tested with the surface covered 1/2" above the fan. The mount is about 1/4" above the mount and very minimally block flow. So far no issues whatsoever.
Once I had them mounted, turned on, and firmware update, I had to run and pick my son up from work. This was so far the only issue I have had with the lights. When I got home I found the glass on one of the lights sitting on my screen top with the lenses on top.
It looked like the glue holding one of the magnets on had let go or it was jostled during shipping. I messaged Daniel at ReeFi and within 5 minutes he responded that it was probably an issue with shipping and recommended a small dab of superglue gel. I did this and let it cure over night and so far no more issues.
This being my first light with full control over everything has been a bit challenging. My first attempt at a schedule I adjusted on my own and put in place. The picture below was taken with the OR lights. Red numbers where the PAR readings from the OR light with blue set to 90 and white set to 20. The yellow numbers where the readings from the Extremes dialed way down to a 123 watt peak to try and match my OR lights. You can tell from the pic that spread is a little bit better (I am limited due to the black center brace on my tank) but wow! This light packs a punch! At just over half power its nearly at the visually appealing OR max setting. When I say visually appealing I mean that I could get more PAR from the OR light by cranking up the whites more but then the tank starts looking overly white and yellow.
I was not happy with my initial home brew settings and ramp period. I decided since I do plan on having SPS near the top I needed to adjust it for some more PAR. I downloaded the config file from the ReeFi facebook group and loaded it on my light. Took some initial PAR readings and I was getting 380-400 PAR on top of my rocks!
Using this as the base and my PAR meter I basically lowered each channel in equal parts until I was reading 300 PAR at my central highest point. I still need to do a full tank PAR snap shot, Maybe this weekend. In the end I dont have a screen shot but my schedule is identical to this one but the peak is 152 watts and day and after points are 143 watts. I have my acclimation mode set to run at 70% and ramp to 100% over 30 days.
At this setting it does run pretty purple looking. I am still tweaking and have discovered that adding a touch more lime kind of lowers the purple hue a bit. In the pics it looks very purple but its just the way the camera picks it up. In real life it does have a purple tint but not over the top like in the pics. These pics are kind of crappy, I recently moved and I could not find my tripod. They are taken with a canon EOS Rebel with a 300 MM lens hand held. The tank is only about 3 months old transplanted from my old reef and I have bleached all the rock to start fresh. I will try and get some better shots when i find my tripod.
Over all I am very impressed. These lights are super powerful and I am positive you can adjust any color combo you want and still have tons of PAR. The Reeflectors are pretty amazing. I get virtually no side glare at all and can watch a movie on my TV right next to the tank at peak power with no issues. Its strange standing at the side of the tank and it looks like the lights are on low power from the side. The light spread and blending is top notch without sacrificing PAR by using a defflector. With my black boxes I had to raise the lights 13" off the water to avoid red and green spots on the rocks and sand. It worked... Kind of but with these lights I lowered them to 9.5" off the water surface and I have ZERO disco affect.
So the Cons
- I am very leary of the glass now that I had one fall off. I work on cars as a hobby and using a rear view Mirror as an example its very hard to keep it glued to glass. ReeFi offers 3D printed light mounts that look like they clip over the glass and I think I would feel better having a clip holding it in place.
- I dont have anything to compare since I have not had any other higher end lights but I feel like it is a bit clunky. Once it was explained to me I was able to grasp the concept though. A line graph would be nice for the ramp schedule but its not really necessary.
- Not really a con but could be for some. If you like tons of shimmer these lights have a very muted shimmer affect. Me personally, I thought I wanted lots of shimmer till this weekend. I was at my LFS and their mother tank was lit with a kessil AP700. The lighting and color was brilliant like the ReeFi but the shimmer looked like an acid trip.
- No over all brightness slider. Brightness is controlled by adjusting the wattage of each individual color. once the desire color is achieved if PAR is low or high you have to adjust each individual color up or down. To get around this I set the color I liked and used the acclimation mode to dial down the over all power till I reached a desired PAR reading.
And the Pros
- Power! With 72 LED's its hard for anything to beat
- Color channels are also amazing. The typical Red and Green are replaced with PC-Amber and Lime and there is an additional Violet LED. The lime really helps visually balance blues and purples out and the PC-Amber helps the brightness and gives a good color to the fish.
- With the Reeflectors the side glare is gone and blending and shadowing issues with LED's seem to be a thing of the past. The lack of shadowing is not as good as straight T5's but it is better than ANY LED I have ever seen in person. I bought these with intentions of supplementing with T5's in the future and I dont think I will be doing that now. I am not sure why the industry standard uses lenses still.
- I know I put this in the cons but the interface is also super powerful. It may be a bit of a learning curve but with 10 channels of set points, the ability adjust brightness in .01 increments, and control over ramping time you can configure just about anything type of scenario for lighting schedule.
- Support is top notch. Every question I had was answered by Daniel himself or others on the reefi facebook group. It is also nice to know I have a 3 year warranty on the lights.
- The interface is evolving. Daniel seems very involved with the development of the interface. I found a minor issue with the resume function and pointed it out. Again within 5 minutes I had a response that a fix should be in the next firmware update.
I am over all very happy with this light and would recommend it to anyone. I have been drooling over Radions for years and was reluctant to pull the trigger on these but I am happy I did and would do it again. #ReeFiLove
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