reefbreeders photon V2 is OUT...reviews here.

[dz6t]

Originally Posted by Mike de Leon

hey guys any suggestion on a 48 X 30 X 21 dims?

30 front to back or 30 deep?

[Mike de Leon]

front to back.

[dz6t]

you need two Photon v2 48 inch.

[Mike de Leon]

Originally Posted by dz6t

you need two Photon v2 48 inch.

Thank you

[Devaji108]

Originally Posted by 915MANG

Hey Guys, Just a thought. I love how this looks, let me know what you think

Nice bud! I like it.

[915MANG]

Originally Posted by Devaji108

Nice bud! I like it.

Thank you, It came out pretty cool. Plus only 2 bulbs, using aquatic life because of the single plug. 54w

[Editour2]

Originally Posted by trmiv

Very tempted with the sale going on to get a 48" v2 for my new 120g.

Is there a sale going on? Prices seem the same per the Reef Breeders website.....

[trmiv]

They had a 10% off Sale for 4th of July. There was a code in their forum.

[rongateb]

What do you guys recommend for my 60" long, 18" front to back, 30" top to bottom tank? 2 Photon 24-V2s or 1 Photon 50-V2?

I am going with a mixed reef setup, a ton of rock and some fish.

I was initially thinking 2 Kessil AP700's. I run 2 Kessil A360We's over my small 40 gallon tank with good results. I've been reading up on the Photon V2s and like what I've been reading.

Not trying to make it a Reefbreader vs Kessil war, but if any of you have any takes on the 2 head to head, I will listen! I was looking in to the AI HYDRA series as well.

I don't have any lighting for the tank right now. I am cycling her for the next week or two so I need to buy some lights soon.

Here is a pic:


Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
-Ron

[DocHogan]

Any updates on this light? Any more reviews?

[Mohawk man]

How do these lights do on deep tanks?

[aznflyfisherman]

How are the growths on sps n lps? From pictures visually coral colors look great under them but anyone have them long enough to see good growth? Thanks...

[Devaji108]

my gorgs. LPS and sofites love it...just started adding corals a few months ago tho...have notices good growth.

[Ron Reefman]

OK, I have the original Photon (actually the EverGrow IT2080 with a custom led layout by me),but I like the new V-2. Here is my question, for those of you who have the V1-2, how much of a pain is it to program 6 channels over 24 hours on multiple fixtures?

I have 3 fixtures over 2 tanks on one stand. Doing just 2 channels over 24 hours on all three fixtures (they have to be done one at a time) takes me about 20 to 30 minutes.

I know that once you get what you want you done change it much or often. I've had mine almost 4 years now and I've rescheduled mine about 6 or 7 times. It seems like the new system would take almost 3 times as long?

I wanted EverGrow/ReefBreeders to develop a better controller that is easier to set.

[dz6t]

it is a lot of pain. 144 time points to put in and the interval is 1 hr.
But the light has good PAR and coral look nice under it.
The step-wise dimming is kinda old school I think.
I hope they will come up a new controller.

[Ron Reefman]

Originally Posted by dz6t

it is a lot of pain. 144 time points to put in and the interval is 1 hr.
But the light has good PAR and coral look nice under it.
The step-wise dimming is kinda old school I think.
I hope they will come up a new controller.

And I'd have 3 or 4 of them! 3 over 2 tanks that are next to each other and 1 in a separate room.

If 3 are within 10 feet of each other, will the remote do all 3 fixtures at the same time? My old originals need the remote almost directly in front of the controller. It won't even do 2 fixtures hanging right next to each other.

[mr9iron]

Tagging along for my new frag tank setup.

[kendrid]

Originally Posted by youcallmenny

Got my 48" Photon V2 a week ago today. I'm pretty sure I like my custom program where it's at, it's just a stunning lightshow daily. I also have a 36" 50%/50% Reef Brite LED strip attached for peak hours.

I keep my levels accurate with very little to no fluctuation and am religious about my maintenance. I was using 3 16" chinese black box led's for the first ~14 months that this tank has been alive. It's my first tank, (75g) and I made that mistake. I openly admit it was a mistake. Coral "grew". A very few made much progress in this time, most have just tolerated my tank or died off. I want to stress here that I'd basically upgraded the heck out of the rest of the tank and was still having growth issues. Custom sump, 150SSS Reef Octopus, mega huge return pump yada yada. It's awesome, but still not the growth I'd hoped for.

So cut to last week. I swear within 12 hours of this light going active (at ~50% max) every single coral in my tank perked up. I've been adjusting the light intensity up all week, and now have a peak hour at 1400 that hits a few channels at 90%. The results are amazing. I'm really glad I got this light.

Anyone that isn't seeing rapid growth and thriving coral with black box chinese led setups, quit lying to yourself. I told myself for a long time that it was just anything but the lights. It wasn't.

I'll post pictures if anyone is interested, but I'd rather give it a few months with this light before I start showing it off.

How are you liking the light? How is growth?

Anyone else upgrade from generic black boxes and see a noticeable improvement?

[FishyKat]

It's been a few months since these were out.. thinking about buying one for my 75 gal tank.

What are your thoughts, for those who's been using it for a few months?

[Ron Reefman]

I've only been using mine for a month, but I had the 32" V1 before (nearly 4 years and still running strong) and the 50" V2 now (new tank). The light is slim and good looking. The fans are VERY quiet and only run if the unit gets warm enough. The blue to white ratio is better too.

The new controller was my big concern. I had 3 of the old version and programing 2 channel over 24 hours on all 3 took 30 to 40 minutes. So I figured doing 6 channels on this would be almost as bad. WRONG!!!

The remote is the controller, so you can program it while watching college football in a different room. That's nice. But even better is the controller itself is easier to use than the one built into the V1 unit. It only took me maybe 8 to 10 minutes tops to completely reprogram the remote. Then turn on the fixture and BAM, the new info is in the fixture and running!

And my alternative to a single $610 Photon 50 V2 was 3 Radions at $750 each ($2200 total). Ha!

[Editour2]

Originally Posted by Ron Reefman

And my alternative to a single $610 Photon 50 V2 was 3 Radions at $750 each ($2200 total). Ha!

Just out of curiosity......have you ever run the V2 side by side to the Radion? I like the photon V2....and I like the price point that comes with it however I'd like to see some statistics on growth and light spread and some side by side comparisons.....especially now that the Radion G4's are out with the new lenses.

[Ron Reefman]

Originally Posted by Editour2

Just out of curiosity......have you ever run the V2 side by side to the Radion? I like the photon V2....and I like the price point that comes with it however I'd like to see some statistics on growth and light spread and some side by side comparisons.....especially now that the Radion G4's are out with the new lenses.

Hi Frank, and no, I haven't run them side by side. But I do have a PAR meter and I can tell you that neither fixture can be run at 100% power over a 24" deep tank and the PAR levels are very similar. And given they both have individual channels for each color of led, you should be able to almost match them up overall color wise.

I used the Radion over a frag tank and it was OK, my corals grew just fine. But the early ones were a PITA to control as you needed to hook up a laptop. It also ran pretty hot compared to the EverGrow IT2080's (same as the original Reef Breeders Photon 32). The new Photon runs so cool the fans only kicked on when I ran it at 100% power while I was doing a freshwater system check before I switched to saltwater. Now the system is about 40% to 50% of full power and the center 2 fans run but the end fans don't come on and the top of the fixture isn't really even warm!

Based on my limited experience with my Radion (I do PAR tests for others in my local club as well) and my 4 years with the EverGrow/Reef Breeders fixtures (I have 3), I would never consider spending 2 or 3 times more than I need to. My 180g sps/lps tank grew corals fast enough that I was always fragging things down and selling them.

I expect I'm going to be very happy with the Photon V2. And my one big concern was the controller. It took me 30+ minutes to reprogram 24 hours of settings on 2 channels over 3 fixtures. Now I have 1 fixture, but 6 channels and I expected it to be very similar... not so! I completely reprogrammed the V2 in under 10 minutes. The new controller is MUCH more user friendly.

[drummerboyevil]

Originally Posted by Ron Reefman

Hi Frank, and no, I haven't run them side by side. But I do have a PAR meter and I can tell you that neither fixture can be run at 100% power over a 24" deep tank and the PAR levels are very similar. And given they both have individual channels for each color of led, you should be able to almost match them up overall color wise.

I used the Radion over a frag tank and it was OK, my corals grew just fine. But the early ones were a PITA to control as you needed to hook up a laptop. It also ran pretty hot compared to the EverGrow IT2080's (same as the original Reef Breeders Photon 32). The new Photon runs so cool the fans only kicked on when I ran it at 100% power while I was doing a freshwater system check before I switched to saltwater. Now the system is about 40% to 50% of full power and the center 2 fans run but the end fans don't come on and the top of the fixture isn't really even warm!

Based on my limited experience with my Radion (I do PAR tests for others in my local club as well) and my 4 years with the EverGrow/Reef Breeders fixtures (I have 3), I would never consider spending 2 or 3 times more than I need to. My 180g sps/lps tank grew corals fast enough that I was always fragging things down and selling them.

I expect I'm going to be very happy with the Photon V2. And my one big concern was the controller. It took me 30+ minutes to reprogram 24 hours of settings on 2 channels over 3 fixtures. Now I have 1 fixture, but 6 channels and I expected it to be very similar... not so! I completely reprogrammed the V2 in under 10 minutes. The new controller is MUCH more user friendly.

Any discoballing given the fact that the LEDs are spaced far apart vs cluster type lights?

[Ron Reefman]

Originally Posted by drummerboyevil

Any discoballing given the fact that the LEDs are spaced far apart vs cluster type lights?

Yes & no. I think any led fixture with leds spread out will have some color edges to shadows. It's unavoidable in that design.

Some light gets through small openings in the rock of my islands and the through the egg crate platforms the rock sits on and when you look inside (which you can do for now) there are real red, green and yellow shadow edges on the sand (if that is what you mean by disco balling). I think this is due to only a small number of leds that shine on the opening in the rock and that creates kind of a pinhole lens and exaggerates the colored shadows.

But the amount of color edges to shadows outside the rocks is minimal if even visible.

[ohrcen]

this is a good question. one I cant answer at this time.