LED Lighting for 9' reef recommendations. Which one and how many?

jformani · Jan 17, 2020

I have an 11 foot tank with roughly 9 feet I need to light. Upgrading from generic blackbox lights. Tank is 130 x 25h x 24w but again only need about 108" or 9 feet coverage.

EcoTech - out.

Looking at AI, Kessil, RedSea 90, Photon v2.

I want to make sure I can dial in color spectrum. I heard the Photons are hard to dial in. I want to make sure I can dial up the blue spectrum, I like more blue in tank but do like it crisp.

Let me know thoughts on lights and how many I should get to cover 9 feet.

Thanks!!

Oldreefer44 · Jan 17, 2020

If it were me I would go with 3 or 4 Orphek Atlantiks. You can run any spectrum you want. Suggest checking out a thread from a while back where a guy had a 2000 gallon tank lit with them.

Reefer40b · Jan 17, 2020

I always recommend a Reef Breeders Photon V2, They are proven at this point and Logan is a great guy! If anything were to go wrong I'm sure he would have your back. Been using his lights for around 3 years now, and have referred others who are also happy customers! 3 x 32's would do the trick! Or you can ask the man yourself @Reefbreeders

jformani · Jan 17, 2020

Reefer40b said:
I always recommend a Reef Breeders Photon V2, They are proven at this point and Logan is a great guy! If anything were to go wrong I'm sure he would have your back. Been using his lights for around 3 years now, and have referred others who are also happy customers! 3 x 32's would do the trick! Or you can ask the man yourself @Reefbreeders

How's the control increasing blue vs white. I've seen the kessil and ai in action and its so simple to change the colors. I did hear that that photons were harder to dial in. blue was washed out. is that your experience?

Reefer40b · Jan 17, 2020

I will say the whites on these a a bit powerful but can easily be turned down to not wash out the blue. I think its easy to change these lights settings personally, cant use your phone but the remote works just fine. There are many excel spreadsheets out there too to help keep your numbers straight and help with input into the remote, you enter it for each hour. V2+ have gradual intensity rather than the original v2 which just stepped per hour. Can send you the xcel sheet, if you want?