SB Reef Lights Ultra Light

vsaunders · Jan 29, 2018

Hi, I am shopping around for a new light to go over my Mixed reef and found the SB Ultra fixture. I noticed they had a give away on this site last year and am hoping that maybe some people bought some of their lights and have used them and could let me know how the perform and how they look on their tank.

Big G · Jan 29, 2018

Got one on my 90. Very happy with it. Plenty of power. Runs off wifi on your phone. No fan, so it's completely quiet. Great coverage. Solid build quality. Highly recommend.

vsaunders · Jan 29, 2018

@Big G could I see some pictures of how your reef looks under how you normally run it?

vsaunders · Jan 30, 2018

Just bumping this to see if anyone else might have the light I am curious to know about

Big G · Jan 30, 2018

Sorry, I can't get my iPhone to airdrop new pictures. Arrgh. Here's an older pic

vsaunders · Jan 30, 2018

That is a good one. Looks nice, though quite purple though that might be the phones camera more than anything. What would you have in the way of complaints? Just want to get a good assessment on the light. How easy is it to adjust the individual channels? what are the increments of the adjustments (1,5,10)?

Big G · Jan 30, 2018

The channel adjustment is a drag and drop 0-100% on 4 channels. It's a little touchy but even my big fingers work it pretty well. Yeah, the blues were way up in the photo and the whites way down. Mike at SB made a video on how to setup the channels on this page https://sbreeflights.com/sbox-reef-lights/10-sbox-extreme-32-wifi.html
Scroll down to the bottom of the page. And he has added a chart showing the basic 4 channel setup, that was not there when I bought mine. No complaints. It works great. Small detail, every once in awhile my phone will default to the lights wifi signal instead of my home's router. Not often, just weird that it does that.

vsaunders · Jan 31, 2018

Yea I watch the video on their site but still wanted a user opinion of the light. so controls are a little touchy... not hard to work with and the phone will sometimes default to the lights Wifi... not too bad as long as it doesn't change light settings.

Big G · Jan 31, 2018

Nope the settings have stayed rock solid. The only part that takes getting used to is the input of the settings. You have to follow the same steps each time. So you are repeating each step over, and over, to setup an entire day. He shows the steps in the video and makes it look easy because he does it all the time. My first time setting up a program was a bit frustrating (old guy) LOL

Would be a big improvement if instead of the drag and drop, they used the little "wheel" things you see on lots of programs. For example if I was trying to set 12% on a particular channel, for multiple time periods, sometimes you end up with 13% or 11% because the dragging and dropping is a bit challenging to control with precision. But in reality that 1% doesn't really effect the output that much because of the 0-100% range. I'm used to it now and have several programs loaded onto my phone: coral acclimation, fish acclimation, algae reduction, normal, etc. Very easy to switch back and forth. Hope this helps. The light is really solidly built. When they ship it, it comes in a carton that is so carefully and strongly packaged, you could drive a truck over it and I seriously doubt there would be damage.

vsaunders · Jan 31, 2018

Good to know cause I was looking at the specks and it looks like they did their take on an Orphek Atlanik V4 with how they have their lights set up and I have seen what an Orphek can do.

happyhourhero · Jan 31, 2018

I can vouch for the spectrum Mike has selected for the lights but I have not used the ultras. Have 2 years of SB use under my belt though and have really enjoyed them.

timnem70 · Jan 31, 2018

I have an SB on my cube. Not the ultra and Deffinatley not as full spectrum as the Kessils on my other tank but it is a Great light and has done well for me and the inhabitants of the tank.

Michael pugh · Jun 25, 2018

I have the ultra on my 75. mixed reef. what max percent are you running on each channel?

USMA36 · Jan 18, 2019

Big G said:
Nope the settings have stayed rock solid. The only part that takes getting used to is the input of the settings. You have to follow the same steps each time. So you are repeating each step over, and over, to setup an entire day. He shows the steps in the video and makes it look easy because he does it all the time. My first time setting up a program was a bit frustrating (old guy) LOL Would be a big improvement if instead of the drag and drop, they used the little "wheel" things you see on lots of programs. For example if I was trying to set 12% on a particular channel, for multiple time periods, sometimes you end up with 13% or 11% because the dragging and dropping is a bit challenging to control with precision. But in reality that 1% doesn't really effect the output that much because of the 0-100% range. I'm used to it now and have several programs loaded onto my phone: coral acclimation, fish acclimation, algae reduction, normal, etc. Very easy to switch back and forth. Hope this helps. The light is really solidly built. When they ship it, it comes in a carton that is so carefully and strongly packaged, you could drive a truck over it and I seriously doubt there would be damage.

I know this is an old thread but I just bought an ultra 45 for my 90 gallon mixed reef. I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind sharing your normal settings? Right now I keep uv at 100 all day, blue max at 50 white max at 20 and red also at 20. I’m curious how that compares.

Big G · Jan 18, 2019

Hello! Have been adjusting my settings while doing battle with GHA outbreak :mad: But seems to have settled down after some vigorous cleanings.
Your settings are very similar to mine. Here's a pic of the schedule and settings.

USMA36 · Jan 18, 2019

Big G said:
Hello! Have been adjusting my settings while doing battle with GHA outbreak :mad: But seems to have settled down after some vigorous cleanings.
Your settings are very similar to mine. Here's a pic of the schedule and settings.

thank you. That is very similar.

cwills75 · Jan 21, 2019

Does anyone know the specs on the 34" Ultra version vs the 32" Extreme? The Ultra's product page has less information, but I assume it's a newer/better model. Based on what I can see, it has 99 LEDs, which is less than the Extreme which looks like it has 22 more. Are the wattages the same 3w/LED on the Ultra or any info? The FAQ seems to refer to their non-Ultra model. I'm interested in one of these lights but their website isn't the greatest for current info.

Big G · Jan 21, 2019

Can't help you with the 34" specs, but I can tell you that the Ultra is a very different light compared to the Extreme. The Extreme is one of those "Chinese Black Box" clones, albeit SB Reeflights improved version. Where as the Ultra is a solid piece of aluminum. It also does not use fans for cooling. So it's very quiet and uses a bit less electricity. But man are these Ultra's powerful. Had to turn my light strength down to keep from burning my rocks and corals. See the settings I'm using in the above prior posting.