The ReefBrite LED striplights have been some of the most popular LED strips in the aquarium hobby since their introduction nearly seven years ago. With little changes to their design besides a more powerful XHO version that packed in more LEDs per foot, we now have the first significant new fixture to the line with the new ReefBrite LED fixture.
It’s all well and good to release a bracket that allows multiple strips to be attached together, but this is a far cry from a full-on fixture, and it requires much more wiring and power supplies to accomplish the same thing. With this in mind ReefBrite has finally created a true fixture version of their popular striplights, and the resulting product is a sleek metallic box that looks very promising as a reef aquarium light.
By combining all the core hardware into a single package ReefBrite’s new aluminum fixture streamlines all the essential elements with fewer power supplies and more accessible two-channel dimming controls. While still just a prototype, the ReefBrite fixture we saw is a two foot long unit with 80 LEDs running at roughly 1.5 watts each for a total of 120 watts of light.
The simple layout of the 5 strips of 16 LEDs with no secondary optics except for a common reflector creates a very uniform light field that will especially appeal to three corals that have a more three-dimensional growth form, such as Acropora, Sinularia, and more branching species. And if you’ve ever seen a ReefBrite over corals you already know that the color is truly exceptional, even without the expensive UV LEDs that add a touch more color rendition.
Even the controller for the new ReefBrite fixture looks mighty fine, with an all aluminum construction and high quality potentiometer knobs that are tied into a bright LED numerical display to show the brightness of each lighting channel. The rear of the fixture also has the necessary hookups to make it Apex-ready and fully compatible.
The new ReefBrite fixture is still in development stage so it’ll be a while still until we see a finished product ready to go, and with the whole feature set ironed out for mass release. In the meantime the fixture looks to really be on the right track and we can only hope that the pricing is equally nice. [ReefBrite]
