Double Bright LED lights from Marineland might trigger the mass adoption of LED
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The Double Bright LED aquarium light from Marineland is starting to arrive at retailers nationwide and when you see the striplight at your LFS, you will give it a second take even if you are not in the market for a general lighting LED light. We first got a good look at the Double Bright LED striplight in September and even then it was clear that the light was not a casual effort from the veteran aquarium product manufacturer. Even more exciting than the potential for the Double Bright LED striplight to be a great family of LED products now and in the future is the fact that this product is one of the first real LED lighting products by a very large aquarium company. The DB LED is a huge sign that LED lighting technology is maturing to the point of mass consumption. Although most of you will be reading this blog everyday because you have some kind of photosynthetic reef aquarium with high energy lighting, there is still a need for efficient, long lasting general lighting for the fish only tanks, quarantine tanks, nonphotosyntetic tanks etc. Even if you may not need one of these lights right now there is a strong chance you will consider a Double Bright LED or something like it in the near future. Follow the break for a complete review and hands on look at this exciting new aquarium light.
Marineland’s Double Bright LED striplight is a great balance of price, performance, efficiency and especially looks. You will start forming a relationship with the DB LED before you even take it out of the box. The very clear and catchy packaging also happens to be very informative and the cutaway that allows the buyer to actually see the fixture is a very creative move.
the cutaway in the box also allows you to see how thin and sleek the light is, starting the buyer thinking at how great this light would look over their tank.
See that spectral plot on the back of the box which tapers off pretty sharply in the red spectrum? Well wesee that too in our own fish tank where an Orange Clarion Angelfish appears orange under two vibrant normal output tubes now it appears much more yellow in appearance. However, there’s a lot more yellow in reef fish than orange and that color is definitely more noticeable in the rolandi damsels, multicolor angelfish, pavo damselfish and red sea pearlscale butterflyfish.
The LEDs are well spread which reduces some of the coverage in the tank but it also helps to encourage shimmering if your aquarium has good agitation of the water surface.
The white LEDs are on the outside and the weak blue moonlight LED is in the middle
The 18-24″ striplight has 6 white LEDs and three moonlight bulbs.
The Double Bright LEDs come in 18, 24 and 36″ lengths but with extender feet/bracket that are less flexible than you would think. This 36″ light neatly stretches out to light up this 48″ fish aquarium.
The profile of the Double Bright LED almost disappears on the aquarium, a very neat and welcome aesthetic trick.
At a distance of ~3″ you can clearly see the effect of the focusing lenses of the white LEDs which help the light penetrate a little deeper in the aquarium.
At ~6″ the white LED light starts to blend rather well.
At the same exposure setting you can see how dim the blue LEDs are
Blue moonlight LED and Lens
White LED and lens
Uber close up of the weak blue LED moonlight, with a minimum exposure setting on the camera.
The Double Bright LED sits as pretty as a Tiara on top of the aquarium. The lower power consumption is a huge advantage to this light as is the likely lifetime of at least five years. Even while using just two four foot normal output fluorescent lamps so the fish tank light was using 80 watts alone. The 36″ DB LED strip covers enough of the tank and although the 18 white LEDs are rated at 1 watt each, the fixture consumes 24 watts. Still, the reduction of more than 2/3 is a very welcome efficiency boost. Granted the tank is not quite as bright as before but this will also lead to less algae in the tank. We like, like, like the Double Bright LED from Marineland but we also have a couple of criticisms. For a fish only tank no light is required but it’s still nice to see our fish in popping vibrance and intensity. on a 12-15″ deep tank a single BD LED is likely to be plenty bright for good fish watching but above 18″ and you are likely to start missing some of the brightness. Also, it is maddeningly frustrating to see very very dim blue LEDs as moonlights. The six blue LEDs on the 36″ DB LED are not even as bright as a single high powered 1 watt LED and we couldn’t even register a power reading on the trusty Kill-a-watt. The so-called moonlights are not even bright enough for twilight viewing; when the whites are off the fish immediately go to sleep instead of lounging about for our viewing pleasure. Marineland would it have killed you to make these just a little bit brighter? The overall color rendition of the DB LED would have been that much better for it but perhaps this feature is starting to tread close to the O-tec patent. All minor quibbles aside, designing a whole new lighting line for mass production is not easy and we give Marineland a lot of credit for an excellent first product. We’d love to hear from those of you who are using this lamp so throw in your 0.02 in the comments and let us know how the Double Bright LED is working for you.
FTC regulations require that we inform you that we were given this product for review, but our opinion of a product is never affected by how we acquire them.
Hmm, while I don’t like the brand name of “double bright” considering one says 600 Lumens output (for comparison sake a single 54 watt T5 bulb is on the order of 5000 lumens) it is nice to see multiple companies starting to bring LEDs to the market, even though there might be some flops along the way the fact companies are doing it, means we’ll more than likely get eventually what we want.
Looks like there’s room to cram at least 5 times as many LEDs in there, for us with reef tanks, and if the price on this thing is low enough this could be a nice fixture as a gateway for a retrofit project.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
While you may be able to cram more LEDs in there physically, the heatsink certainly won’t be able to handle the increased load.
February 26th, 2010 at 3:19 pm
These low(er) end LED fixtures are surprisingly strong. I’ve been able to maintain (and actively grow) Red Sea Xenia, RBTAs, and Aussie Favias under three of the Current Powerbrite LED modules in my refugium using them (12 watts total). Wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t witness it myself.
February 26th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
Clive: Well obviously it’d be more of a mod then cramming more LEDs into it, hell that thing looks to be passively cooled too, fans would be in order, as well as a beefer heatsink (i’m guessing with those running at 1W each they have a tiny heat sink hooked to each emitter at most. Hell 9 watts at 450lumens tells me they’re using older generation LEDs at best anyways.
Pickle: I have a hard time wanting to trust a light source that has less output than a 13W CFL. I know there’s much more to it than how much light a bulb puts out, but 450 lumens? really?
February 26th, 2010 at 6:16 pm
It’s nice to see that there is finally a LED fixture being offered by one of the ‘mainstream’ companies. With that being said, I’m not a big fan of this fixture for anything other than a FO tank (if that). The reasons why I don’t care for it are because the fixture (with both actinic/daylight on) gives a very yellow 10,000k look that isn’t aesthetically pleasing. Secondly, I noticed that once you go from having just the actinics on to both actinic and daylight, the intensity of the blue LEDs dims considerably. Did anyone else notice this?
As always, thanks for the read.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:04 pm
At our store, we can’t keep these in stock.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:24 pm
@Jon C – These are only intended for FO tanks, never marketed for, nor intended to, maintain anything photosynthetic.
@Clive – You wanna bet? LOL!
@Mike- The entire fixture is the heatsink. You can see the cooling fins in the photos that show the top of the fixture. There is significant potential for additional passive cooling.
February 27th, 2010 at 11:27 am
@Mike– I can’t vouch for these particular lights, but the Current Power Bite LEDS are what I have. Like I said, I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t witness it myself. Granted, the fuge is only about 12″ deep, but apparently they are strong enough to meet the needs of photosynthetic creatures I hav I have in it.
fuge is the inline tank on the left in this photo.
http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee318/picklethepug/DSC00150.jpg
March 1st, 2010 at 12:27 pm
Hi,
I just setup a new fresh water planted tank (46 bow front). And the 36″ fixture is amazing. If I was going to a larger tank like a 70+ I would use more than one of these. The colors are vivid and I get good plant growth with out much algae. I suspect it’s too dim for coral tanks but for us fresh water people it’s perfect.
Jon
March 2nd, 2010 at 9:01 am
@Tony- I’m well aware that they are for FO tanks. I tested one on a FO Wrasse display and to be completely honest it made the tank look dim, especially compared to the two-bulb VHO that it replaced.
@JonG- Sounds like the perfect candidate for a FW planted… sounds like you like it a lot!
March 2nd, 2010 at 10:02 pm
I am shocked that it looked dim compared to 2 VHO bulbs…..
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March 25th, 2010 at 4:46 pm
I have on of these on a 33L tank 48″x13″x12″ that I plan to have some soft corals and maybe LPS. Since it’s only 12″ high the light is very nice and bright. Very pleased so far and love the fact that it’s only 26 watts.
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