NICREW HYPER REEF 50W -- Any Experience on quality, coral growth and optimum mix?

[davy31]

Hey guys, being new here I wanted to explore further on lighting and the experience people have had with the Nicrew hyper reef kit. I have been using one for 4 months on my 120 litre aquarium. Having faced a pretty big catastrophe recently with my reef tank, I wanted to understand lighting better to help my corals grow.

I run the 50 Watt Nicrew hyper reef for a soft coral tank and have a few questions for people who have any experience with the Nicrew for their reef.

1) Any idea what the wattage per LED is and is their par reading of PAR of 120 µMol at a depth of 60 cm correct? I having a feeling the cheap lights overstate their PAR
2) What channel mix is optimum for soft corals to help them grow faster and also the intensity?
3) Does lower intensity mean there is a lower PAR ? - This is more of a general question.
4) What kind of controller do you use for the 50W and do corals diffefrentiate between ramping up/down phases vs direct on/off times.
5) I would like to upgrade to an AI prime HD one day - Apart from the price point and controllability differences between AI and NIcrew - Is there really a big difference that corals would notice if I were to upgrade?

I have been struggling to have my softies feel happy in my tank and grow, they just wont open up. I have a few other threads with my water quality and problems I have faced recently. I am pretty new to the reefing game and would like to get my fundamentals strong.

Here is a pic of my tank with the Nicrew Hyper Reef 50W.

 

[LiveFreeAndReef]

Can't answer all your questions, but the light has 24 LEDs so they're probably 2W LEDs and they just rounded 48W up to 50W because it looks better on paper. As for the PAR, the readings are typically done through air, not water. So the PAR rating you'll be getting in the tank will likely be lower than the 120PAR that they claim it is.

 

[EricR]

Only had the Nicrew HyperReef 50W for a couple of weeks maybe and no corals yet so I know nothing but wanted to make sure you saw this huge thread on the Nicrew:

R2R Nicrew Hyper Reef Thread

*lots of reading but pretty sure there's at least a few notes about coral happiness with the Nicrew in there

 

[PensacolaReefKeeper]

I grow montis, duncans, hammers, etc with the nicrew marine.