Orphek has a couple new lights to show off, and one of them is a big honkin’ reef light. The Orphek Amazonas is a 500 watt LED spotlight which could easily be mistaken for just another commercial LED light.
However, unlike the massive multichip fixtures we’ve seen with one big common relfector, the Amazonas sports sixty reflectors, each with a unique four-stack of unusual looking little diodes. The neatly separated mini LEDs are made by a company that specializes in making high power, low cost high capacity LED lights, resulting in a very bright and efficient LED package.
Also, the blue color of the reef version of the Amazonas LED light was also pretty rich, and not that stark 470nm blue that dominated LED lights for many years. Orphek is also making the Amazonas light in a horticultural version, with blue and red diodes, as well as a freshwater planted version which will feature much more white and warm daylight colors.
If you were bold enough to preorder this light at MACNA you got in on the sweet introductory price of $899, but full retail for this fixture will be around $1499. Once upon a time we were happy with aquarium LED lights that offered around $10 per watts of power but now we’re firmly in the realm of $3 per watt.
On the more consumer facing side of Orphek, their Slimline Super Blue LED fixture is now officially ready for sale. This powerful blue LED striplight offers 45 watts of juicy, fluorescent-popping actinic colored light for $199.
The Slimline Super Blue LED strip is ideal as a supplement for large and medium size tanks with conventional lighting, but which could benefit from some extra pop. It’s nice to see Orphek continue to be among the wave of companies that continually offer users a range of lighting choices, and we hope to see the Amazonas and Slimline in action real soon.
