New Ecoray LED Lighting System to join Reefstock LED Showcase
15 Comments
Virtually every LED light system for reef tanks will be featured at this year’s Reefstock. So it is my pleasure to introduce the Ecoray High Power LED light from Naxandra Inc. This light has been in development over the last year. Naxandra will be releasing Ecoray 60 starting in March. The light will retail starting at $299.99 and includes a one year warranty. It is available wholesale through Underwater World Enterprises, and will be available for purchase at local retailers.
The intent of designing and building this light is to offer an affordable alternative for LED lighting that will allow hobbyist see a return on their investment measured in months instead of years. Ecoray has custom features designed specifically for Naxandra including high power LED, all aluminum casing, light boards and fan. The spacing and angle of the lenses was altered to best light up standard aquarium sizes for most reef denizens. By engineering certain components of the system we were able to increase the overall lighting area, while using the same wattage. Also the spotlight affect has been reduced to replicate a more natural spread of light, while still inducing glimmer lines. The Ecoray 60 is 60 watts and is rectangular (8.5” x 14”) and is designed to fit inside most commercially available tank canopies. The Ecoray 64 is 64 watts and is 10.5 inches square. They both come with mounting brackets for installing in a canopy and wire for hanging installation. We will also offer a two cord option, one for independent control of white and actinic lights.
I have successfully grown coral using components of the system over the last year. In fact our initial design had half the power, yet is still able to grow every kind of coral including Acropora. The decision was made to increase the wattage of the unit as well as using more expensive high power LED so that hobbyists could grow any coral of their choosing, including SPS, in a variety of installations.
The lights come in a 1 to 1 ratio of Blue to White. Naxandra chose this lighting ratio because they found that the coral fluoresced stronger with the same general color temperature (14,000K) if they used more blue and more natural colored white (7,000-10,000K). This gives the overall affect of a 12,000 to 14,000k bulb, yet with much brighter fluorescence from the coral.
I would recommend one at least every 18 inches for most tanks to achieve lighting as strong as a 250 metal halide. So for most applications this will replace a 250 MH, when trying to light your tank to 150-400 micromoles, covering the range of most coral kept in aquariums.
The next step in reef light is here and it is exciting to see all the new choices available to hobbyists. The future bodes well for energy efficient lighting. See you in Denver my friends.
Justin Credabel
Director of Aquaculture
Underwater World Enterprises
Justin Credabel is a co-designer of the Ecoray LED light and a stakeholder in Naxandra Inc.
Very cool Justin…. Yah, see you next week
March 3rd, 2010 at 8:15 pm
Did you measure the PAR of the light over a certain coverage area and different depths?
March 4th, 2010 at 2:07 pm
I have one of these from another retailer – same setup, been using it for >1yr on a small nano growing everything from mushrooms to SPS, LPS and even a maxima clam. Mine gets hot but I love it.
March 4th, 2010 at 3:43 pm
Justin you know I want to try one of these out give me a call
March 4th, 2010 at 5:18 pm
@erwin-what LED system do you have? where did you get it from?
March 4th, 2010 at 8:00 pm
[...] The Ecoray do come in at a reasonable price and the fixture does look eye catching. I can also see aquarists using multiple configurations to have it fully customizable for their setups. I would love to pit the LED to a 250W MH and if there is any long term effects. Got questions, read the full post via Reefbuilders. [...]
March 4th, 2010 at 11:53 pm
It looks alot like this, just larger:
http://www.amazon.com/WHITE-LED-Aquarium-corals-light/dp/B001TICOR4/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1267798219&sr=1-14
March 5th, 2010 at 8:12 am
That looks really nice, and the price is reasonable too. Looking forward to seeing these things in person at Reefstock.
March 5th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
@ kyle – see ledwholesalers.com and ebay.
March 5th, 2010 at 8:48 pm
Looking forward to picking these up this month!
March 8th, 2010 at 8:43 pm
thanks erwin, i had a feeling just had to double check.
March 9th, 2010 at 7:00 pm
We measured Par at 24″ and got over 400 micromoles at center.
March 11th, 2010 at 11:00 am
Hi, so I’ve tried to email the makers of the ecoray, but there hj\as been no reply for a week and a half, so I thought I might ask you guys your opinion. The dimensions of my tank are 19′ deep, 22′ long, and 17′ wide. I currently keep my sps corals within the top 2/3 of my tank, and in an area around 19′ long, 10′ wide. My soft corals tend to be around the edges, and my LPS tend to be there too. I’d like to keep the set up this way, so I was wondering if your system can let me do that. I was also wondering if I could hook your led system up to a ProfiLux, or Digital Aquatics controller.
March 26th, 2010 at 11:59 am
Hi, does it comes in with a dimmer??
May 8th, 2010 at 8:53 pm
Efficient lighting is needed for sustainable architecture. A 13 watt LED lamp produces 450 to 650 lumens . which is equivalent to a standard 40 watt incandescent bulb . A standard 40 W incandescent bulb has an expected lifespan of 1,000 hours while an LED can continue to operate with reduced efficiency for more than 50,000 hours, 50 times longer than the incandescent bulb.
May 24th, 2010 at 2:09 am