Neptune SKY LED

[ReefRxSWFL]

Things are much more attractive when they are free, which I assume his were.

You can’t get an unbiased opinion from someone getting free stuff, otherwise you stop gettin free stuff. Also someone who wants to sell the product has some skin in the game as well. Its not exclusive to this industry.

At least for me, until i see it in a tank doing what it claims to do, and by that, i mean 3 of them over a 180 filled with mature branching colonies without shadowing colonies below and no need for extra fixtures or fill light to prevent shadowing. If it doesnt do that, its just another high end LED to me making the age old claim of covering a 2 foot section of tank. I also prefer some shimmer, so it has to do that. If it ends up not being my brand of Vodka, i think Ecotech will still sell me lights.

 

[Jon's Reef]

A few questions:

Do any NSI peeps have close up pictures of the build quality? I heard the main piece has like a rubbery finish?

What color settings is everyone using (one of the templates or custom)?

Does anyone have the "Shimz" accessory for adjusting the amount of shimmer?

Any pics with the SKY combined with a second source ( pic with and without the supplement, ex. 2 Sky with an a360x in the middle, or SKY with RB or Orphek bars)

Is there a sell/ ship date?

@randyBRS Where is that analysis video!

 

[flourishofmediocrity]

Here's everything I've seen so far (not including the teases where they just show the tank and not the light):

official product announcement


Melev's reef unboxing / install


Melev's reef livestream talking more about the light


reef automation livestream talking about the light

 

[GillMeister]

Sorry everyone. I started this thread and neglected it. I see the discussion has careened into other subjects so this might be a good time for a reset.

As I stated earlier, I'm very interested in seeing what the take is on the control aspect. IMO, this has the potential to really set this light apart.

I also said I have Orpheks and I'm not changing. The only draw back on the Orphek lights is the lackluster control. For people just getting into LEDs or upgrading to something new it would be great to see if SKY is an ideal light for Apex predators. Er, users.

 

[A. grandis]

Agreed but We will be cleaning this thread up even more and removing members who continue to hijack or spread a narrative that lends to their hate of a company or product. I’m tired of it.

This is not a thread about LED versus MH so please stop hijacking this thread about the SKY. If you want to argue the two please go start your own thread.

I answered direct posts with quotes towards lighting.
I don't think I showed any hate here.
Still my long messages were deleted.
That is disappointing.
God bless you, pastor.

 

[A. grandis]

Is this commercial classified as "hate"?
Should I report every post with this message?
Is this what SKY's message is about?
Do I have the right to disagree?

I'm out!
God bless everyone here!
I apologize to the OP!
I'm sorry for disagreeing with some of you.
I do not hate anyone here. Love you guys.

 

[GillMeister]

Why is the capability of being able to control these thru the Apex such a huge advantage?

Ha! If you've used a bad light controller you wouldn't have to ask. believe me.

 

[GillMeister]

Is this commercial classified as "hate"?
Should I report every post with this message?
Is this what SKY's message is about?
Do I have the right to disagree?

I'm out!
God bless everyone here!
I apologize to the OP!
I'm sorry for disagreeing with some of you.
I do not hate anyone here. Love you guys.

No harm done, in my opinion. These long threads tend to find their own path, if you know what I mean. We all value well informed opinions that don't devolve into personal attacks.

 

[Terence]

Without directly quoting and addressing various members questions or concerns, here is a bit more info I can give you all to chew on.

Shimmer. First off, if you are looking for "Kessil/Red Sea" type shimmer, you will not be happy with the SKY alone - you could for sure augment with some K180 I guess to get that hard, fast-frequency kessil shimmer lines. The SKY was designed for the tastes of the 80% of the top end reefkeepers. No offense to those that run them, that is not really the place Kessil has been playing to date save for hybrid configurations of all sorts of bars, T5, etc. Again, if hard shimmer is your game, go with the Kessil A500 or augment the SKY with small kessil options. With other LED you can only choose to have no shimmer with their diffuser option, or have shimmer that has a disco or static TV effect on the sandbed. The Shimz solution on the SKY enables the best of both worlds. If you want the full flat look of T5, the optional diffused Shimz are available.

Emulating the Sun, Trying to be MH
The SKY was designed to mimic the spreading and diffusing effect of the Earth's atmosphere, not the sun. If you watched the video closely, that was made clear. Other lights try and emulate the sun. MH, on its own, was never a great solution. Spread, color, etc. just weren't there. So VHO then T5 and then LED strips were added to help it along. The SKY more closely emulates that lighting solution than it does other lights out there - that even with diffusers will not match the spread and more importantly, the mixing of separate LED, at the fixture, like the SKY does.

Area of originating light
The size of the light panel, and the light engine technology employed is what is necessary to get this homogenous light going everywhere. There is a trade off though. You certainly could make a huge panel but with the trade off of it getting in the way, creative ways to cover off sized tanks, etc. We think this rectangular size is the perfect balance of coverage and versatility.

What LEDs inside
The SKY uses a mix of 8 different LED for main LED and moonlights. Nearly all of them are Cree or Luxeon LED. It does have "UV" LED whose peak is at 405nm.

Sale price and availability
The SKY will be shipping to dealers in 4-6 weeks. There will be a larger demand than there will be supply. This is the case with popular product releases in many other markets (cameras, game consoles, etc.) with much bigger companies than ours. Like all of our products, they will be made available first to dealers in the USA, following shortly after that with the ROW. The price in the USA will be $869.95 (same price as G5 XR30 when you include their optional diffuser)

Manufacturer involvement in discussions
One thing Neptune Systems does I think more than any other major manufacturer is engage the public in social media, forums, etc. We do this despite often having to endure a lot of honest an d sometimes harsh feedback. And thats OK - we do it because we want the feedback. But please realize that the form and content of what you post does affect how much involvement people like myself will have with a particular community. If it is not welcoming (and do not read that as it has to be all sunshine and puppy dogs) then I and others will not participate as much. I think one person above actually mentioned this above. Now, please understand that given the many things my job requires, I will not be on here responding or posting all the time. Its just not possible. However, I always try to do my best to stay engaged.

 

[Terence]

The most beautiful SKY tank video yet!

 

[GillMeister]

Now, please understand that given the many things my job requires, I will not be on here responding or posting all the time. Its just not possible. However, I always try to do my best to stay engaged.

What, you have a day job to attend to? Thanks for jumping into the discussion. I appreciate your honest assessment of your product and that you didn't bash others.

You have more than a few supporters on R2R.

 

[flourishofmediocrity]

Without directly quoting and addressing various members questions or concerns, here is a bit more info I can give you all to chew on.

Shimmer. First off, if you are looking for "Kessil/Red Sea" type shimmer, you will not be happy with the SKY alone - you could for sure augment with some K180 I guess to get that hard, fast-frequency kessil shimmer lines. The SKY was designed for the tastes of the 80% of the top end reefkeepers. No offense to those that run them, that is not really the place Kessil has been playing to date save for hybrid configurations of all sorts of bars, T5, etc. Again, if hard shimmer is your game, go with the Kessil A500 or augment the SKY with small kessil options. With other LED you can only choose to have no shimmer with their diffuser option, or have shimmer that has a disco or static TV effect on the sandbed. The Shimz solution on the SKY enables the best of both worlds. If you want the full flat look of T5, the optional diffused Shimz are available.

Emulating the Sun, Trying to be MH
The SKY was designed to mimic the spreading and diffusing effect of the Earth's atmosphere, not the sun. If you watched the video closely, that was made clear. Other lights try and emulate the sun. MH, on its own, was never a great solution. Spread, color, etc. just weren't there. So VHO then T5 and then LED strips were added to help it along. The SKY more closely emulates that lighting solution than it does other lights out there - that even with diffusers will not match the spread and more importantly, the mixing of separate LED, at the fixture, like the SKY does.

Area of originating light
The size of the light panel, and the light engine technology employed is what is necessary to get this homogenous light going everywhere. There is a trade off though. You certainly could make a huge panel but with the trade off of it getting in the way, creative ways to cover off sized tanks, etc. We think this rectangular size is the perfect balance of coverage and versatility.

What LEDs inside
The SKY uses a mix of 8 different LED for main LED and moonlights. Nearly all of them are Cree or Luxeon LED. It does have "UV" LED whose peak is at 405nm.

Sale price and availability
The SKY will be shipping to dealers in 4-6 weeks. There will be a larger demand than there will be supply. This is the case with popular product releases in many other markets (cameras, game consoles, etc.) with much bigger companies than ours. Like all of our products, they will be made available first to dealers in the USA, following shortly after that with the ROW. The price in the USA will be $869.95 (same price as G5 XR30 when you include their optional diffuser)

Manufacturer involvement in discussions
One thing Neptune Systems does I think more than any other major manufacturer is engage the public in social media, forums, etc. We do this despite often having to endure a lot of honest an d sometimes harsh feedback. And thats OK - we do it because we want the feedback. But please realize that the form and content of what you post does affect how much involvement people like myself will have with a particular community. If it is not welcoming (and do not read that as it has to be all sunshine and puppy dogs) then I and others will not participate as much. I think one person above actually mentioned this above. Now, please understand that given the many things my job requires, I will not be on here responding or posting all the time. Its just not possible. However, I always try to do my best to stay engaged.

Great info Terence! One thing I would be interested in is a PAR calculator to help design number of lights and layout options for putting sky lights over various tanks before purchasing. For example, I have a IM 200G EXT peninsula (70.9" x 30" x 21.7"). I would probably put 3 transverse for a mostly SPS mixed tank, but I would like to see what the PAR numbers would look like with just 2 SKYs if I wanted to have just a softie tank. Another thing Neptune could do is publish some PAR estimates with various light configurations for popular tank sizes.

 

[Terence]

Great info Terence! One thing I would interested in is a PAR calculator to help design number of lights and layout options for putting sky lights over various tanks before purchasing. For example, I have a IM 200G EXT peninsula. I would probably put 3 transverse for a mostly SPS mixed tank, but I would like to see what the PAR numbers would look like with just 2 SKYs if I wanted to have just a softie tank. Another thing Neptune could do is publish some PAR estimates with various light configurations for popular tank sizes.

We have some testing and there will be recommendations in the set up process that we will roll out to the marketing information as well. Don't expect this "calculator" though. That said, with them 10" over a 72x28x22 tank, at 100%, we had 207 PAR in the corner near the back wall of the peninsula with some occlusion from the rock stack nearby. Three SKY were set up transverse across the tank. This tank could have easily been lit for 85% of users with two SKY in the normal orientation and had exceptional spread and PAR. Also note that the mix of LED we chose was, with all channels set to 100%, done so for both the coral health and being pleasing to the eye of all us reefkeepers here at NS. The result is a look that many at RAP mentioned looked a lot like 20K Radium MH. Optimizing the mix for all 100% for the widest market desire results in the best performance for the most amount of people as you are not attenuating any channel much or at all to get a desired look.

 

[ReefRxSWFL]

Its kind of hard to tell how these lights will do until they get in the hands of paying customers for some unbiased feedback.

Id have to see over a mature tank to see if one every 2 feet prevents shadowing, makes the tank look good for me and grows coral.

 

[Kfactor]

Without directly quoting and addressing various members questions or concerns, here is a bit more info I can give you all to chew on.

Shimmer. First off, if you are looking for "Kessil/Red Sea" type shimmer, you will not be happy with the SKY alone - you could for sure augment with some K180 I guess to get that hard, fast-frequency kessil shimmer lines. The SKY was designed for the tastes of the 80% of the top end reefkeepers. No offense to those that run them, that is not really the place Kessil has been playing to date save for hybrid configurations of all sorts of bars, T5, etc. Again, if hard shimmer is your game, go with the Kessil A500 or augment the SKY with small kessil options. With other LED you can only choose to have no shimmer with their diffuser option, or have shimmer that has a disco or static TV effect on the sandbed. The Shimz solution on the SKY enables the best of both worlds. If you want the full flat look of T5, the optional diffused Shimz are available.

Emulating the Sun, Trying to be MH
The SKY was designed to mimic the spreading and diffusing effect of the Earth's atmosphere, not the sun. If you watched the video closely, that was made clear. Other lights try and emulate the sun. MH, on its own, was never a great solution. Spread, color, etc. just weren't there. So VHO then T5 and then LED strips were added to help it along. The SKY more closely emulates that lighting solution than it does other lights out there - that even with diffusers will not match the spread and more importantly, the mixing of separate LED, at the fixture, like the SKY does.

Area of originating light
The size of the light panel, and the light engine technology employed is what is necessary to get this homogenous light going everywhere. There is a trade off though. You certainly could make a huge panel but with the trade off of it getting in the way, creative ways to cover off sized tanks, etc. We think this rectangular size is the perfect balance of coverage and versatility.

What LEDs inside
The SKY uses a mix of 8 different LED for main LED and moonlights. Nearly all of them are Cree or Luxeon LED. It does have "UV" LED whose peak is at 405nm.

Sale price and availability
The SKY will be shipping to dealers in 4-6 weeks. There will be a larger demand than there will be supply. This is the case with popular product releases in many other markets (cameras, game consoles, etc.) with much bigger companies than ours. Like all of our products, they will be made available first to dealers in the USA, following shortly after that with the ROW. The price in the USA will be $869.95 (same price as G5 XR30 when you include their optional diffuser)

Manufacturer involvement in discussions
One thing Neptune Systems does I think more than any other major manufacturer is engage the public in social media, forums, etc. We do this despite often having to endure a lot of honest an d sometimes harsh feedback. And thats OK - we do it because we want the feedback. But please realize that the form and content of what you post does affect how much involvement people like myself will have with a particular community. If it is not welcoming (and do not read that as it has to be all sunshine and puppy dogs) then I and others will not participate as much. I think one person above actually mentioned this above. Now, please understand that given the many things my job requires, I will not be on here responding or posting all the time. Its just not possible. However, I always try to do my best to stay engaged.

It’s nice to see you post and have good feed back And more info in them . I must say it’s nice to have more options in lighting In the table . Also does the light have a 1 year warranty?

 

[Terence]

Its kind of hard to tell how these lights will do until they get in the hands of paying customers for some unbiased feedback.

Id have to see over a mature tank to see if one every 2 feet prevents shadowing, makes the tank look good for me and grows coral.

Fair enough. Have you seen my tank - pretty mature? Pauls tank in the office? Joes Tank in the office here? All on our livestream. Also, you can check out others like Rich Ross and his tank, Mark Callahan as his matures, and so on. And, we have a number of people in our NSI. I think you are going to see a lot of chatter about the SKY over the next three months from people amazed at what this light can do. But, skepticism is good.

It’s nice to see you post and have good feed back And more info in them . I must say it’s nice to have more options in lighting In the table . Also does the light have a 1 year warranty?

Yes, one year.

 

[DaneGer21]

Have these tanks been started on the Sky? Or just upgraded to them?

Makes a big difference to some

 

[revhtree]

You can’t get an unbiased opinion from someone getting free stuff, otherwise you stop gettin free stuff. Also someone who wants to sell the product has some skin in the game as well. Its not exclusive to this industry.

At least for me, until i see it in a tank doing what it claims to do, and by that, i mean 3 of them over a 180 filled with mature branching colonies without shadowing colonies below and no need for extra fixtures or fill light to prevent shadowing. If it doesnt do that, its just another high end LED to me making the age old claim of covering a 2 foot section of tank. I also prefer some shimmer, so it has to do that. If it ends up not being my brand of Vodka, i think Ecotech will still sell me lights.

I actually get free stuff from companies wanting me to review but I tell tell up front that I will not leave a good review unless it's good. I don't do it much because I don't want to have to leave a bad review.

 

[revhtree]

Is this commercial classified as "hate"?
Should I report every post with this message?
Is this what SKY's message is about?
Do I have the right to disagree?

I'm out!
God bless everyone here!
I apologize to the OP!
I'm sorry for disagreeing with some of you.
I do not hate anyone here. Love you guys.

We love you too but the arguing about LED versus MH is not good form in this thread and I'm not just saying it was you. I'm just responding to you here. I removed others posts as well. It takes the whole thread way off path. Feel free to debate LED vs MH all day long in other threads created for that purpose. Thank you.

 

[Terence]

Have these tanks been started on the Sky? Or just upgraded to them?

Makes a big difference to some

Some are 100% beginning with the SKY (MrSaltwaterTank). Others converted like myself converting from a similar form factor with the CoralCare. Others, like Joe in our office started with T5/K360 with a few frags but in just a few months changed to the SKY mid year last year. The results have been stunning and I will show this more in the coming weeks.