The NemoLight LED from AquaMaxx is an attractive and affordable light fixture which was recently released in several sizes. To reach a balance between form, function and cost, the NemoLight is not the brightest or most fully featured light you can get, but this is one light you wouldn’t mind using for shallow or medium light reef tanks.
As we saw in the first part of our review of the NemoLight, the fixture itself is incredibly attractive, and fits very nicely on a wide range of tank sizes. The built in timer is particularly useful in making this light plug and play with no additional accessories or timers required.
We found the NemoLight very easy to install and set up, but what is most important is how live corals and reef life looks under this new LED aquarium fixture. We performed our review of the NemoLight at our preferred LFS, Aquatic Art in Highlands Ranch Colorado, where we found a plethora of displays and wide range of corals to test the color rendition of the new AquaMaxx NemoLight.
The first test we performed on the NemoLight LED was to see how it colored up a basic piece of purple live rock with some sunburst anemones on it. Above you can see the image of the light with all color channels at highest intensity.
At this ‘setting’ the NemoLight was comparable to the overall color rendition of the Radion that is permanently mounted over it. While the NemoLight only has four colors of LED including just one shade of blue, so it didn’t have nearly the color rendition of the Radion Pro but it is commendable that the overall look is in line with our color preference for high tech reef LED lights.
With just a single shade of blue LEDs, the NemoLight won’t give you the distinct pop of blue, royal blue, deep blue and accompanying UV either. However since it uses unlensed LEDs there is no disco ball effect and the dispersion of the NemoLight is quite uniform.
The use of medium output LEDs is even more important when considering other LED colors like red and green. These two colors compliment each other and it’s important to use them in close equal numbers, and the NemoLight does this well as you can see in the photo of just the ‘White’ channel of LEDs on the fixture including red and green.
We tested the light intensity of the NemoLight in water using the new and improved Apogee MQ-500 PAR meter as well. In real world conditions, the NemoLight mounted four inches above the water surface was able to deliver 100-120 umols of PAR at a depth of eight inches of water, so 12 inches total. At a depth of 12 inches underwater the NemoLight was still producing measurements in the neighborhood of 80 umols of PAR.
These are very respectable light intensity measurements for the NemoLight which should be more than enough to sustain and grow moderate light corals in most tanks, and even some of the higher light coral species in a shallow tank. You won’t be breaking any coral color or growth records with the NemoLight, but neither will beginner reefers get into trouble with massive algae outbreaks by starting out with a light that is too bright for their experience level.
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