Bloomspect or viparspectra

[browndriver22]

Looking to purchase these for a mixed reef tank. Is there any difference besides the name? Both are on Amazon with a 3 year warranty. Any feedback would be appreciated.

 

[Dennis Cartier]

I would suggest neither. They appear to be run of the mill Chinese Black Boxes. If you want to go for something at the same price point, Google up "SB Reef Led". Their entry level units are about the same price and they have a spectrum that is a bit more optimized for Reef. Note, I don't actually use them myself, but you can find lots of people who do, to provide end results.

Dennis

 

[browndriver22]

I would suggest neither. They appear to be run of the mill Chinese Black Boxes. If you want to go for something at the same price point, Google up "SB Reef Led". Their entry level units are about the same price and they have a spectrum that is a bit more optimized for Reef. Note, I don't actually use them myself, but you can find lots of people who do, to provide end results.

Dennis

Thanks for the feedback I will look into them

 

[David Prescott]

I bought the ViparSpectra and while the color looks very good to my eyes with nice shimmer without the disco effect my coral did not respond very well to them with the exception of my frogspawn. I tried all kinds of settings low to high and could not get my anemones happy. On low settings they would stretch out not getting enough light, on higher settings they would retract and hide and get really short blunt tentacles that released zooxanthellae. I'm saying they would be stretching at 15% blues then turn them up to 17-20% and they would run away. Super frustrating. I found some posts online where some people had been working with them for 9 mos and getting the same results from their anemones. Also the clocks slowly get off which is super annoying. Looks like you already got the advice you needed so this is just a lengthy +1

 

[rosshamsandwich]

i have sbreeflights and I can't dial in to make the anemones happy either. Same experience as you David. Exactly

 

[David Prescott]

I actually did a panel swap on vipars with sbreef panels and things improved some but not much. Vipars will grow chaeto like crazy though.

 

[David Prescott]

Glitch, double post;Facepalm

 

[ZachR32]

I've had great success with my vipars...haven't had issues growing anything. Variety of acroporas, montiporas, birdnest, zoas, euphyllia, BTAs etc...key is to increment intensity very slowly

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

i have sbreeflights and I can't dial in to make the anemones happy either. Same experience as you David. Exactly

Grab a $15 lux meter. Makes it easy.
100 par is about 6000 lux.

For a 24 in deep mixed reef , 300- 400 par is a good target at the top of the tank. About 24,000 lux.

Set the color to eye.

 

[David Prescott]

QUOTE="ZachR32, post: 4570817, member: 89893"]I've had great success with my vipars...haven't had issues growing anything. Variety of acroporas, montiporas, birdnest, zoas, euphyllia, BTAs etc...key is to increment intensity very slowly[/QUOTE

I see lots of people saying they’ve had great success with them and they have amazing pics to back it up so I believe you. I think I just don’t get it when it comes to led’s. I think I’m failing at the tinkering aspect of led ownership.

Grab a $15 lux meter. Makes it easy.
100 par is about 6000 lux.

For a 24 in deep mixed reef , 300- 400 par is a good target at the top of the tank. About 24,000 lux.

Set the color to eye.

Great advice on lux meter! I will look into it before giving up and going back to halides.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

QUOTE="ZachR32, post: 4570817, member: 89893"]I've had great success with my vipars...haven't had issues growing anything. Variety of acroporas, montiporas, birdnest, zoas, euphyllia, BTAs etc...key is to increment intensity very slowly[/QUOTE

I see lots of people saying they’ve had great success with them and they have amazing pics to back it up so I believe you. I think I just don’t get it when it comes to led’s. I think I’m failing at the tinkering aspect of led ownership.



Great advice on lux meter! I will look into it before giving up and going back to halides.

Yea. It’s a trick. IMO , MH aim general gave more par than most folks figured. Better too much than too little (I kinda agree there).
The dimmer knob kills pretty much every one. Lol.

I set my tanks to close to mh pars and never touch the knobs. Only time.

 

[DancingShark]

A friend recently purchased two viparspectra on my recommendation based on reef I have seem being keeped on them. He had a flinnex marine 24/7 that he was trying to upgrade from. I set it up and acclimated the corals.
The only thing I notice when it came to light intensity was my sbreef lights blues were much much deeper and white much brighter at 100%. If interest I could get pics something this weekend. Plus for 130 bucks why not.