I finally got my hands on the Phillis Coral Care Gen 2 LED fixture and got the light mounted up this Morning. I had initially intended on swapping one of my halides out for this but decided to take advantage of an open space over my T5 system to pit it against an ATI 6 bulb SunPower running 3 tropics, one actinic, one blue plus, and one purple plus.
My first impressions of the light are very positive. I like the fact that it is all contained and does not employ a remote power supply. This coupled with a heavy-duty heat sink makes the fixture a little heavier than your typical LED. But it's a "good" heavy and the unit has an extremely solid feel to it. Perhaps my favorite feature of all is that it does not have any fans. This is a huge deal to me as I am literally in a constant state of replacing fans on my numerous fixtures. T5 and LEDs alike. Excellent work on that detail.
Overall I can see that Phillips really focused on even and well-blended light distribution more than most, if not all other commercial fixtures which definitely sets this apart. The opaque diffuser seems very effective. The visible similarities between the T5 spread and very evident and I don't see that there was much of a compromise in par achieving this, which again is a huge plus to me. Mounted at the same height as the T5, I am seeing par at the water surface around 500-550 which is exactly what I am seeing under The T5's. Check my IG for a quick video of these measurements.
I plan to relocate a handful of random SPS colonies from various sections of my main system under this guy and will report my observations and anything interesting I come upon for sure. So far I can say with certainty that I am impressed already and can't wait to see how well this grows and colors up sps.
My first impressions of the light are very positive. I like the fact that it is all contained and does not employ a remote power supply. This coupled with a heavy-duty heat sink makes the fixture a little heavier than your typical LED. But it's a "good" heavy and the unit has an extremely solid feel to it. Perhaps my favorite feature of all is that it does not have any fans. This is a huge deal to me as I am literally in a constant state of replacing fans on my numerous fixtures. T5 and LEDs alike. Excellent work on that detail.
Overall I can see that Phillips really focused on even and well-blended light distribution more than most, if not all other commercial fixtures which definitely sets this apart. The opaque diffuser seems very effective. The visible similarities between the T5 spread and very evident and I don't see that there was much of a compromise in par achieving this, which again is a huge plus to me. Mounted at the same height as the T5, I am seeing par at the water surface around 500-550 which is exactly what I am seeing under The T5's. Check my IG for a quick video of these measurements.
I plan to relocate a handful of random SPS colonies from various sections of my main system under this guy and will report my observations and anything interesting I come upon for sure. So far I can say with certainty that I am impressed already and can't wait to see how well this grows and colors up sps.
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