Inexpensive Lighting

[BiGGiePauls33]

Does anyone use the inexpensive eBay Black Box LED's? I know they're not Radions or anything like that but I was watching a couple videos of some very well established tanks that are using these with success and figured for the small investment, it would be a viable option at the moment. Thoughts?

 

[Jacked Reefer]

Three are several inexpensive fixtures I would use long term. How large is your tank?

 

[BiGGiePauls33]

Three are several inexpensive fixtures I would use long term. How large is your tank?

40 Breeder

 

[dantimdad]

Welcome to R2R!

Do a search for real black box light study.

There are many who use them with great success.

I mod them so you can check my build.

 

[Jacked Reefer]

40 Breeder

You could run the 2 or 3 foot reefbreeders.
Two noopscye lamps may work for your setup.
I’m person running a light off amazon that is 93 bucks and is working well

 

[ZoWhat]

I buy them.....GUT THEM.....and resolder high quality LEDs i want to use by buying quality LEDs diodes online

Ive retrofited 4 Chinese LED knock off boxes

Resoldering LED diodes is pretty dang easy with a good soldering iron with a fine tip. You just need the same exact form factor of the diode and the right wattage (which 3w is pretty standard).

Amazing how cheaply you can retrofit a circuitboard with high quality LED diodes that are used in super hi priced brandnamed lights.

I'm having great results with a mixture of 390nm, 420nm and 460nm LEDs i bought and resoldered on my all zoa tank. Great color and growth

 

[Stickboy15]

better to just take the hit to the wallet once then not be happy and do it over. I have a hydro galaxy black box corals never grew or colored up as well they did with my radions I also had 2 leds go out in less then a year with them.

 

[Stickboy15]

I say look for some used radions or AIs

 

[Ronny Bello]

I bought them Hipargero aqua knight A029 led love them. Got two of them. I can use a ramper for them but sold separately. Got them for $61 a piece and excited to see them in action with corals. Have to wait for I'm cycling right now. I did some research a lot of it for my needs and income. Hope this helps. Amazon is where I got them.

 

[Ronny Bello]

Shoot wanted to show this too.

 

[Instigate]

Plenty of people have had great success with the black boxes. I used t5 but recently switched to a 300w black box for my 36" long tank and the corals have never looked better. It was a used fixture and the previous owner had removed the lenses. I also put a strip of parchment paper a few inches under it to better blend the colors and get rid of the disco shimmer. Then I added a 36" actinic LED bar directly on the screen top in order to add a slight bit of shimmer back. Very pleased with the results. No doubt my hobbled together diffuser is not as nice looking as the Radion diffusers but it was a fraction of the cost and does the job nicely. I would like to experiment with some different diffusion materials to find something that doesn't block as much light, I had to crank the light up to 100% after adding the diffusion.

 

[Hella_Reef]

Ocean revives t247