Ecotech Marine’s Radion and Radion Pro LED lights are some of the most complete, versatile and colorful LED lights available to reef aquarists today but they are very powerful, and in some cases too powerful for the moderate light corals that are most popular on the reef scene today. You could always turn down the intensity of the Radion LED lights but then there’s a slight sting of paying for power in a reef light that you’re not using.
To address this conundrum today Ecotech Marine is releasing a new 120 degree wide angle lens that is a cinch to add on to existing Radion LED light fixtures. For just $35 you can transform your existing lens-equipped Radion or Radion Pro with the new wide angle TIR lens. Now your high output LED light which produces high levels of light over approximately a four square feet area can be used to deliver more modest levels of light over nine square feet, or approximately 36 x 36 inches.
Whereas yesterday a Radion Pro with the original TIR Lens could reach light levels approaching 1000 umols of PAR, as of today with the new wide angle TIR lens you can still get up to 500 umols of PAR with a much more manageable 200-300umols of light over most of the reef tank. So if bare LEDs have a native lens angle of 120 degrees why not just use the Radion with its original un-lensed reflector?
We surmise that the new 120 degree TIR Lens is better at collecting light from the diodes and directing it downwards compared to the bar reflectors that absorb and scatter some of the light, so slightly better PAR numbers overall. However, for us the real reason to use the new wide angle lens over the reflector is an aesthetic one to keep light from shining outwards into viewers eyes and making a more discrete zone of lighting and darkness.
We’ll have to try out the new Wide Angle TIR Lens for ourselves to see how it really stacks up agains the original TIR lens and reflector but you if you’re feeling plucky, today is Cyber Monday and you can pick up a pair of the new lenses for $35 at the Ecotech Marine Store.
EcoTech Marine is proud to announce the launch of its latest product, the Wide-Angle Total Internal Reflection (TIR) Lens, which provides a wide spread option for larger aquariums. The lens will be sold as an accessory for new and existing Radion fixtures.
Optimized for the highest PAR possible over a wider coverage area, this lens accessory allows an aquarist to customize their Radion fixture to trade light penetration for coverage. Extremely useful for shallower aquariums (up to 24” deep) or for non-SPS dominated aquariums, this accessory adds a great deal of flexibility to the application of Radion fixtures. It is especially useful on tanks with dimensions that result in light coverage where one Radion may be insufficient but two lights are excessive, such as on 36” wide aquariums.
The Wide-Angle TIR lens is designed to achieve a 36? x 36” spread at approximately 9” above the aquarium versus a 24? x 24” spread for the standard TIR lens. This increased spread is achieved by diminishing the peak PAR achieved at the center of the fixture. The kit can be installed on all Radion LED fixtures sold to-date.
