Reef Brite Actinic LED striplights blueing up some deep reef tanks
18 Leave a comment
The image above show an 8ft long, 3ft deep reef tank being illuminated solely by 48 watts of pure actinic LED goodness courtesy of the new Reef Brite striplights which have begun shipping. Several nights ago I had the pleasure of groping a few of these actinic LED striplights and even with haphazard placement over some fairly deep reef tanks it was very impressive to see these lights absolutely blow away the standard VHO actinic 03 lamps. Not only that, but the Actinic LED supplementation was very noticeable on corals in another deep reef tank while the thousands of watts of halide were on. We’ve been keeping an eye on this new product and it’s one thing to see them at the reef events, either standalone or placed on some of the short lived reef aquaria but to see these lamps in action over real reef tanks and having a strong fluorescent effect while competing with 400 watt radium halides was something else. Over the weekend I’ll be installing 200 watts of the actinic LED strip lights from Reef Brite over a 1200 reef tank and I look forward to seeing how the whole tank looks once the lights are in place and competing with 5000 watts of halide light. Follow the break for a comparison shot of what a war coral looks like at three feet deep with and without the LED actinics fired up.
Update: Here’s an animated GIF of the war coral with and without actinic LED light through three feet of water.
Both pictures were taken with white-balance that was adjusted prior to turning on the LEDs. The first image is without the LEDs and the second image is with the LEDs on, again at 3 feet down in the tank. However subtle the differences in the images may appear, I feared that the LED Actinics would be drowned out by the many halide lamps but that simply was not the case.
What’s the life-span for these?
December 18th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Def interested in these, who sells them online?
December 18th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
the emerging standard for LED lighting durability is 70% of original intensity after 5 yrs or 15,000 hrs of operation. Obviously these lights have not been in use long enough to know for certain, but they were designed to meet that standard; that is what the rep tells us.
December 18th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
just got some setup on friends tank,the look is unlike any other,very intense coloration
December 18th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Marine Depot sells some Reef Brite products so that would be a great place to start looking for them
December 18th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Ooops, I just went looking for them there and didn’t find any Reef Brite products on MD any longer.
December 18th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
If that is the tank I think it is, I saw those before they went on the tank. They have amazing output for the amount of LED’s.
December 18th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
@Shaun how many 1,200g mountain top tanks are there in the Denver area???
December 18th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Gresham, that is what I get for only skimming what Jake writes. Only one tank I know of, but there is a lot of $$$ in those mountains.
December 18th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Where can u buythese right now?
December 18th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Google is your friend….First one I got is Reef Specialty.
December 18th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
We are taking orders now…..
http://www.premiumaquatics.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=reefbrite
December 18th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Are these basically a longer version of the Current PowerBrites? Hmm…
December 19th, 2009 at 2:40 am
@Jon C. no these have no likeness to the Current powerbrites. Those had puny LEDs with lenses, these have 6 LEDs per foot and it has a common reflector from end to end.
December 19th, 2009 at 10:49 am
Reefbrite website is still underconstruction. Does anybody have pictures of the lamps etc?
December 21st, 2009 at 9:36 am
Jake you have got to get a picture of the reflectors. The shape is like nothing else I have seen.
December 21st, 2009 at 12:45 pm
here is one
December 21st, 2009 at 1:45 pm
What LED are they using?
January 4th, 2010 at 5:20 pm