Chinese Black Box LED or Expensive LED?

[Gareth elliott]

Perhaps
@saltyfilmfolks has some better mounting options for you too.

 

[DSC reef]

I’ve used a few black boxes for years. They absolutely grow coral. I used Ocean Revives and grew a tank full of mature SPS colonies all from frags. Everything in the pic below is black box grown.

The downside I found is that they do break. I’ve had power supplies go bad, fans stop working, and diodes burn out. I’m good with troubleshooting and know how to use a soldering iron, so I’ve been able to fix issues myself. Ocean Revive was always good about providing parts, even though their customer service was in China.

I recently upgraded to some higher end lights just because I wanted to see if they would increase my success. The jury is still out.

Here’s my black box build before my neighbor decided to have a fire in our condo building:

That's an amazing tank

 

[Ashv5]

ALL OF THOSE CORALS FROM FRAGS!!!! OMG

 

[Neo Jeo]

Get the Photon V2

 

[Ashv5]

But isn't it expensive?

 

[Crabs McJones]

Ya and the black boxes catch on fire, cause cancer and make you cats spit up hairballs.

Do they really cause cancer?????

Pretty sure he's joking

 

[jda]

Black Box will be fine for some softies. However, if you are struggling with T5s, the BBs will not make anything any better. You should be able to have thriving Z&P with T5 too. I might suggest that you figure out how to get the Z&P to thrive with what you have now before buying something new.

I love the Huma in a reef... one of my favorite all-time fish.

 

[sawdonkey]

Here’s my par test when my tank was younger. I believe my lights were at 70% for this test. This tank is 30 inches deep. The orange is where the fixtures are and the yellow is where the cross braces are.

 

[paphater]

I've been running 3 sb reef lights and while they certainly grow corals fine I haven't been happy with them. I added T5s a couple months ago and now I'm in the process of building my own LEDs to replace the sb reefs. Chinese BB are a perfectly viable option but they won't compare to a light that costs 8x as much, and nor should they.

 

[MMreef]

I had some blackbox LEDs and they never did anything good for me. I was curious just like everybody else and I learned my lesson. The age old rule still applies here, unfortunately. You get what you pay for! Bulk reef supply did a great video on this pretty recently.

 

[BoomCorals]

A few months from now we will be reading random posts from newcomers who heard black boxes cause cancer.

That said your zoas aren’t mad because of T5. So changing lights won’t fix it. You said your previous light fell into the water. I’m guessing there are contaminants in the water causing your issue.

 

[Daveyy]

Ya and the black boxes catch on fire, cause cancer and make you cats spit up hairballs.

Really? Any actual fact about this? Always hear people say this but without any source.

 

[Crabs McJones]

Really? Any actual fact about this? Always hear people say this but without any source.

No, he's joking, .....why would a light cause cats to spit up hairballs....

 

[WVNed]

Really? Any actual fact about this? Always hear people say this but without any source.

It was a joke. I had assumed the hairball thing would be enough but I guess not.

I have used Viparspectras and no cancer or fires have occurred. The cat did spit up a hairball but they do that sometimes.

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

Hi all I think black boxes are fine depending on what you are looking to keep/expect from them. As for disco ball effects I don't really notice mine, my vipar spectra light is mounted about 9 inches above a 24x18x18 on a converted TV Wall mounting bracket and is growing my montipora digis just fine. I have had this fixture for the last 19 months and I have only cleaned the dust from inside once.

I think you can spend more money on led lighting and achieve better results but I think you'll find with all the options and adjustability with said lighting people just constantly tinker with settings and can possibly do more harm than good sometimes, possibly bleaching corals by running them to high (experience talking). I noticed on some expensive led fixtures the disco ball effects are alot worse, they even made them more expensive by having to put diffusers on them to help negate this which in turn drops par levels abit so you have to run the output higher to get the same par.
Do your research with what your looking to keep and if all your budget at the moment allows is for a black box then go for it to keep your corals alive and growing until you can save enough for the lights you desire.

 

[Daveyy]

I meant the fire.

No, he's joking, .....why would a light cause cats to spit up hairballs....

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

This is my mounting of my viparspectra that I made

with my modified TV Wall bracket,

 

[vetteguy53081]

Black boxes do the trick BUT remember...... in this hobby- BUY IT ONCE and you get what you pay for.

Chinese Black box VS expensive black box = Warranty/ long term performance VS NONE

 

[dz6t]

I meant the fire.

No they wont catch on fire. There is no evidence that a blackbox led with the same design of Galaxy Hydro ever catch on fire.

A premium LED has more to do with its control-ability, cosmetic design, warranty service and brand name.

 

[Dilan Patel]

I use sb reef lights over both my tanks. they grow/ color just fine if not better than the kessils I had. I get way more par/spread than i did with the kessils. I do tun two t5s just to add a little lore blue to the tank but all in all I do grow sps on bottom of my tank and this is a 180 gallon tank. I highly reccomend them as the sb reef lights seem good quality for he money!