The Reef Capable LED from Marineland is a very hyotly anticipated aquarium LED light which has not yet been released. However, the fine folks at UPG sent over a review unit for us to share with you. As we predicted in our initial review of the Double Bright LED, the first generation light was really just the beginning and Marineland has stepped up the ante with a light that is much brighter, but still just as easy on the eyes as before. Don’t even get us started on the packaging which makes the Reef Capable an object of desire before you even get it out of the box. The Reef Capable LED from Marineland may be able to grow corals but it is even more capable of looking real good on the tank and on the store shelf.
Not only is the Reef Capable LED light a pretty number, it is exquisitely bright with a very balanced coloration over corals and plant tanks alike. A quick PAR reading with the newer Apogee PAR meter yielded values that were consistently above 80 umol at a distance of 18 inches through saltwater, directly underneath the light. We can tell that Les and the gang spent a lot of time on the spacing of these LEDs on the Reef Capable to get their convex style lenses to deliver a balance of intensity and spectrum. Furthermore, the new Reef Capable LED is a significantly better color than the previous Double Bright. Eyeballing it we’d say the color temperature of the Reef Capable LED is really close to a nice cool white 10,000 Kelvin with just enough blues to bring up the color rendition and make a few fluorescent colors pop. Continue reading for more on our initial impressions of the Reef Capable LED from Marineland and stay tuned for the head to head between both generations of Marineland LEDs.
Four inches from the wall
Eight inches from the wall
About sixteen inches from the wall
