New 144 watt Reef Breeders LED fixture come with a different look

By Joost de Vries on Sep 25, 2012

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For this 144 watt Reef Breeders LED fixture, “interesting” is probably the best description we can come up with. The Reef Breeders LED fixtures aren’t necessarily ugly, but they are not the prettiest things in the world either. These fixtures would probably best suited for fish stores, wholesalers or others situation were looks isn’t the most important part. Priced in the 300 dollar range the new Reef Breeder LED fixtures are also great for reefers not looking to break the bank. Beside the great pricing the new Reef Breeders fixture also offers some neat features that are worth mentioning, such as a modular design which allows easy access to the internals much like the newly released Ledtric Inspire, along with full controllability through both a remote and an on fixture controller.

The Reef Breeders fixture offers dimmability through both an interface on the fixture itself and provided remote, and also offers dawn/dusk simulation. A built in timer allows the user to setup lighting cycles. The fixture has a modular design meaning that no glue is used, resulting in the ability to open up the fixture by simply removing some screws in case it is needed. Two fans on top of the LED array under the hood provide cooling, running cool air through the whole fixture increasing contact time with the heatsinks. The fixture will retail for $299 or $349 depending on the configuration selected, and should ship out September 15th.

CaliReefer

“These fixtures would probably best suited for fish stores, wholesalers or others situation were looks isn’t the most important part.”

Are canopys really becoming that uncommon? I would think this would suit anyone with a canopy where the light would be hidden from view anyway. which still seems to be the majority of tank owners I know.
Mike

Interesting, it seems these are a quasi-DIY fixture. You need to assemble it yourself. Would be interested in more details, this price point does make it attractive, and it has built in controllability?
lvanghele

No assembly is required, the pics are just breakdown animations of the components. The controller is built in.
Guest

They are not ugly, the angles of the pictures may make it look that way, but they are not at all as tall as they seem in the pics. Over a tank it looks much nicer.
http://www.facebook.com/wesley.few.5 Wesley Few

No mention of make/model/color LEDs?
Mike

Ah ok, glad because the picture made it seem like the end user put the LEDs in. Tried looking for it on the website of Reef Breeders, unfortunately the only controllable LED that’s $299 looks nothing like this. (plus it’s populated with red and green LEDs which I’m not quite digging)
lvanghele

What don’t you like about the reds and greens? The ratio is based on what people have tried, and what worked for them (and me).
CaliReefer

I have tried greens and cyans, it didn’t work for me at all (personal preference). Reds on the other hand I found to make quite a big difference (for the better) in coloration of certain fish and corals. I use 4 reds (that replaced 4 cyans) on a 48 LED light at it seems to be a good ratio for my taste.
lvanghele

These fixtures have 3 reds, 1 cyan, 1 green, 4 violets, and a blue. I would say that is a decent ratio, and what works. I agree, greens alone do little compared to reds, but still have a beneficial effect, however minor.
Mike

I’m sure some people do like them, however red is such a narrow bandwidth that it really doesn’t do much except reflect red coloration, which I understand might be great for some but not me.

The greens more likely than not have plenty of green in the white portion of the LED, most “Cool white” that I’ve seen has a rather large hump in the green/yellow part of the spectrum anyways, and again single color emitters like red/blue/green/etc have very tight bandwidths for the coloration they give off.

I would much rather have some warm-white LEDs thrown in with the cool whites to get those colors you want, since the warm white actually does have considerable red/orange in it as well. Also having more colors that help get common fluorescent pops would be better, green, cyan and red don’t do that for the majority (all?) of corals we have in our tanks, the Royal blues, blues and violets all do that, and they do it differently. Plus when you have a few spaced over an entire fixture (especially with lenses) they do tend to give you color banding/disco ball effects.

But then again, I’m not the designer, I’m simply stating why I’m not a fan of red and green LEDs
lvanghele

I find that the nuetral and warm whites have much less of an effect on coloration than the reds and greens/cyans. Check the spikes, they are around 600nm for nuetral whites, which is not very effective IME. Cool whites have a large 450nm spike, which is the growth spectrum. You can use nuetral and warm whites, however they are less effective than reds, red oranges, and greens/cyans.
ReefBreeders

The info is not entirely out yet, though it will be in a few weeks. The LEDs are Bridgelux 3 watt LEDs. BTW, lvanghele is a company rep. we just created an official account.
Mike

That’s the thing, looking at all published data from manufacturers there are no spikes for white LEDs except in that 450(ish) “blue” range. The rest of the spectrum is a smooth transition across the board encompassing a ton of wavelengths. It might not have the same effect it’s because it’s not just a single tiny wavelength band that the single color LEDs give off.

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