Aqua Illumination LED Owners

[hatfielj]

Question for those of you with one of these lights...Can you comment on (or show pictures of) the quality of the color of light these units put out? Is the color temperature really adjustable to your own liking? Can you show some pics of the various color temperatures achievable with this light? I'm very picky about this and want to make sure that I can get a temp I like! Thanks!

[tkeracer619]

You can get the temp you want. MY buddy has 4 and they are awesome. I didn't look at the control but the unit was 100% adjustable in color output between full white and full blue.

[hatfielj]

Any pics? How are the actinic only bulbs? Are they overpowering at all?

[dean1977]

I have these lights, 6 modules on a 72" tank thats 30 inches deep. Awesome power...I have frags from 400Watt tanks that I have to acclimate on the sand bed at 30% white and 80% blue. My plans for the future is eventually have 50%white and 100% blue. I can take some pics but my camera sucks and my phone camera is worse. 100% blue with no whites is insane! My montipora setosa frag looks like its on fire, and my yellow montipora looks literally radioactive. I may add a 7th module soon for more complete coverage. They have very diricted lenses to punch deep but tend to be a little spotty. The solution to this is too raise the modules higher off the water. This will be fine bc the lights are so strong to begin with. If you put any coral right under the light
(six inches) on 100%, it would bleach out for sure. I'll post some ugly pics later i guess.

[dean1977]

I just tried with my phone and they are terible pics. Its just not picking up the light right. You can adjust the settings to phase 8 different phases. So you can ramp up to high sun, then leave for a couple hours, ramp down, an hour of mostly all blue, then blue moon at 1% with lunar cycle. Thats my preference. I like a little all blue at night just bc it looks awesome. I'll try to grab someones camera. I'm thinking about a PAR meter too.

[hatfielj]

Sounds awesome, thanks for the info!

I'm thinking about using a single one of these over an Elos Mini.

My brother in law has a maxspect g2 and overall I'm pretty impressed with how bright the LEDs actually are. The really impressive thing is how crazy blue the actinics are. Its almost too much actually, so that's why I'm hoping to have a light that's fully adjustable so I can find a combination I like. Though Aquaillumination is much more expensive, the downside to the maxspect is that its not adjustable at all.

[dean1977]

Being able the adjust color and intensity is really great. It's good when acclimating corals too. For me it all depends on depth of tank. For shallow tank, pacific sun makes nice fully adjustable lights. I just don't know about the make of their diodes. AI uses CREE. They are really strong, and there is no heat.