buildmyled

GratefulReef · Feb 28, 2013

So, I've been playing around on their site for a week or so now and I was wondering if any of our members are using their lights and what you think about them? I was thinking of 4 12" fixtures for my 75g with the possiblility of adding another 24 inch fixture in the future. Really what I'd like to know is, what type of results are people getting with them.

revsgirl · Mar 1, 2013

Bump

Chasing the Dream Giver, not the dream! Tonya

markalot · Mar 1, 2013

I have 3 of their fixtures. My first was their custom reef spectrum, second was just a deep blue / 6500K white and third was a modification of their custom reef to spectrum to add UV and cyan.

THe unit construction is awesome, I mean really really awesome. I got mine with dimmers to sit on top of a glass lid over my 20 long. Way way way too much light for my tank, so I ended up dimming them down to 25% - 50%

The only negative I see has nothing to do with BuildMyLED and I want to make that clear. These are great lights.

Over my 20 long, sitting on a glass lid with just 13 inches between the lights and the sand, the disco effect is really really bad. I'm betting this would not be noticeable if they were hanging a decent height above the tank but I don't have that option. Because of this I ended up placing my blue/white fixture on the back half (disco effect negligible using just 2 colors of LED's) and used a normal output t5 fixture under driving HO t5 ATI bulbs on the front to get the blend of colors I like.

IMO if you are going to hang these above your tank I think you'll be very pleased with how they look and perform. Be sure to check out their forums for other examples of how people have used these over their reef tanks.

GratefulReef · Mar 2, 2013

Yea, I was thinking of using a rail system with legs on the rim of the tank to have them hang on with something that will swivel and allow me to change the height they are off the surface, allowing me to swivel them out of the way while I need to reach in the tank. Very happy to hear you like the product seems like I can now start planning the LED array. Any chance you could post a pic of your tank with those LEDs? Also how many can you control with the same dimmer module? I have a 75g and plan on getting 4 of these fixtures with 2 over each side of the tank, one with mostly blue spectrum and the other with a combo for coral coloration.