SBReef Lights

[cdfjr1975]

Still in the planning stage of what I'm going to do with my tank, 100g 5ft tank, and thought of getting these

https://sbreeflights.com/sbox-reef-lights/13-sbox-30-basic-3-channel.html

Since this is my first tank I'm not sure about what lights to get. I will ultimately get corals and from watching fishofhex it seems he is running some SBReef lights and his corals seem to be growing well.

Any advice

 

[mcarroll]

In addition to collecting responses here, I'd suggest doing a forum search for that light (or any you're interested in) and finding people here that have posted pictures as well as experiences.

There are lots of good LED's, and as long as you know what you're looking at, there really aren't many (any?) bad ones.

Maybe consider post #12 from another thread.

 

[MaccaPopEye]

The post that @mcarroll linked to is spot on (and quite well written)

I have 3 of the mars aqua lights and I am a pretty big fan and I'm of the opinion that you won't get a better bang for your buck than black box LEDs (this includes SB lights). The separate dimming of the blue and white channels gives you a lot of flexibility to adjust the lights to make your tank look more or less whatever colour hue you want.

More expensive lights have some cool and fancy add-ons. The slow ramping up and down is cool, the extra colours are nice and the lights themselves look sexy as. But at the end of the day its all wank factor and your corals wont notice the difference, its all for you. Where I live 1 mars aqua is literally 10% of the cost of 1 radion (they are just a cool $1K in Aus) so for me it was a no brainer.

I have read some good things about the SB reef lights and hear that they might be just that little bit nicer and they are only that little bit more expensive, so if I could go back I would probably get SB over mars aqua.

Also for a 5ft I would go with 3 of the black box units

 

[luke33]

Two of those will work just fine for anything you want to grow. Black boxes are great inexpensive fixture's, sb has the best spectrum out of the black box's imo. Ofcourse you can source the diodes yourself and solder them in a mars to get a similar effect.

 

[happyhourhero]

I love my SB Reef Lights. I had regular black boxes before and these are a vast improvement in coral growth and coloration. Have had them since December.

 

[mcarroll]

Indeed....with almost any of the spotlight types (usually includes China boxes) you're better off with at least one more unit than is generally recommended. It improves coverage and will let you run each fixture at less intensity, which should make all the components last longer.

Look at examples where people use more and you'll see A) they are more satisfied on average and B) their tanks usually look better, with less dark areas. Again this is pretty much irrespective of brand.

(Look to strip LED solutions if the prices start to scare you in this direction. Coverage and lack of shadows can be considered to be built into the design.)

(If you like the dramatic look of halide or spotlight-type LED tanks, then you can ignore this whole post as fairly stark shadows are natural to both of them....it's mostly a matter of what you're used to/personal taste.)

 

[happyhourhero]

Here is what it looks like in real time. Pretty decent shimmer.

 

[cdfjr1975]

The post that @mcarroll linked to is spot on (and quite well written)

I have 3 of the mars aqua lights and I am a pretty big fan and I'm of the opinion that you won't get a better bang for your buck than black box LEDs (this includes SB lights). The separate dimming of the blue and white channels gives you a lot of flexibility to adjust the lights to make your tank look more or less whatever colour hue you want.

More expensive lights have some cool and fancy add-ons. The slow ramping up and down is cool, the extra colours are nice and the lights themselves look sexy as. But at the end of the day its all wank factor and your corals wont notice the difference, its all for you. Where I live 1 mars aqua is literally 10% of the cost of 1 radion (they are just a cool $1K in Aus) so for me it was a no brainer.

I have read some good things about the SB reef lights and hear that they might be just that little bit nicer and they are only that little bit more expensive, so if I could go back I would probably get SB over mars aqua.

Also for a 5ft I would go with 3 of the black box units

You suggest three but at 30 inches long two would fit a 60 inch tank. Am I missing something ?

I was thinking those would give the most coverage since it would be the entire length or would 3 16inch do fine covering 48 of the 60 inches.

In addition to collecting responses here, I'd suggest doing a forum search for that light (or any you're interested in) and finding people here that have posted pictures as well as experiences.

There are lots of good LED's, and as long as you know what you're looking at, there really aren't many (any?) bad ones.

Maybe consider post #12 from another thread.

My search skills are horrible I didn't return very many hits for sb reef so I do appreciate your insight and the link to the other post. Not done with all 15 pages yet but it is a good read far.

I'm not worried so much about buyers remorse as I think my research has proven these are good lights and as you stated none are really bad.

I probably should have phrased my question for advice better since I was more concerned about too little or over kill on coverage.

 

[cdfjr1975]

I love my SB Reef Lights. I had regular black boxes before and these are a vast improvement in coral growth and coloration. Have had them since December.

Looks awesome those colors really pop

 

[happyhourhero]

 

[mcarroll]

I was....these are the longer fixtures. You might still be lacking in front-to-back coverage, but you'd have to see first hand. I wouldn't assume anything bad. I think you're right that side-to-side coverage should be pretty solid.

This is not the typical spotlight/chinabox deployment, so shadows should be reduced quite a bit too.

 

[MaccaPopEye]

You suggest three but at 30 inches long two would fit a 60 inch tank. Am I missing something ?

I was thinking those would give the most coverage since it would be the entire length or would 3 16inch do fine covering 48 of the 60 inches.

Sorry it was me who was missing something I didn't click on the link and assumed (incorrectly) that you were linking to the standard 16" boxes (of which I was recommending you get 3 of). I'm not sure what the coverage on the 30" boxes is like but they say the 16" cover a 2'x2' square and while I agree with the 2' claim for the long side of the box the short side of the box falls a bit short (probably closer to around 20") hence why I would recommend getting one extra.

But 2 of the 30" should be fine (I'm not sure how wide your tank is though)

 

[cdfjr1975]

Sorry it was me who was missing something [emoji14] I didn't click on the link and assumed (incorrectly) that you were linking to the standard 16" boxes (of which I was recommending you get 3 of). I'm not sure what the coverage on the 30" boxes is like but they say the 16" cover a 2'x2' square and while I agree with the 2' claim for the long side of the box the short side of the box falls a bit short (probably closer to around 20") hence why I would recommend getting one extra.

But 2 of the 30" should be fine (I'm not sure how wide your tank is though)

Awesome thanks. Tank is 16 or 18 (drawing a blank at this moment) 24 tall.

Thanks for the great advice. I'm sure I just missed it somewhere but for the life of me I couldn't find the coverage for these boxes.

 

[Tiffany Johnson]

Still in the planning stage of what I'm going to do with my tank, 100g 5ft tank, and thought of getting these

https://sbreeflights.com/sbox-reef-lights/13-sbox-30-basic-3-channel.html

Since this is my first tank I'm not sure about what lights to get. I will ultimately get corals and from watching fishofhex it seems he is running some SBReef lights and his corals seem to be growing well.

Any advice

if you ever have any problems, it will takes months and months before you get anyone to answer the phone or return your emails.....