Live: 6 Months of Lighting Experiments & What We Learned About the Future of Reef Tank Lighting.
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- Опубліковано 8 лют 2025
- The 2023 reef tank lighting showdown has concluded! Today, join Ryan and Thomas LIVE as we break down what we learned after testing 50+ LED saltwater aquarium fixtures and what the future of reef aquarium lighting looks like. Join us LIVE at 4PM CST!
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Thomas is so good, I think he needs to be your new permanent presenter partner! Cool, intelligent and sharp
😊 thanks so much!!!
I remember watching Thomas when he made videos for that other aquarium store... What was it? AJs or something.
Loved him then, love him now. Good to see him still involved!
More Thomas, more better!
We shot 20 videos with him this week, there is more to come :)
Yeah I agree they have similar chemistry to when randy use to co host
SO glad that you're using a scientific method, in that you're questioning your own, previous knowledge. THAT is what makes BRStv the BEST.
Good team! Love Thomas there.
And what an amazing series that was. Real science and critical information for all aquarists. Amazing job!
We strive to do it better every time. Hopefully, we hit that mark :)
Need to see more of Thomas on future videos. He really makes a good co host.
THE BEST explanation I've ever heard. Thank you. Can't wait to apply this whole principle to not only aquatic plants but also house plants.
This video was sooo good! Encapsulates everything you need/want to know about lighting! Well done you two!
Thanks!
Thank God I found this video. I ventured away from the hobby close to 10 years ago. So just recently I started back researching what's going on in the hobby, with the mindset of getting t5s. But t5 fixtures don't appear to be readily available like I remember them being. I could be wrong. I was a little discouraged though. But it's good to see BRS still making these scientific videos and being a trusted source, STILL.
T5s are still available but mostly online unless you have an old-school shop in town. Welcome back 💪🏻
I would go for all blades. The future of reefing is exciting! Thanks for the good work, guys!
hope you are rich
Newbie here. What are the blades that you’re talking about?
There very expensive and the blades are the new kids on the block,I would go all blades if I had the cash 💰
Love seeing Thomas again 🎉
Loved it! Thanks for continuously pushing the boundaries and helping us understand the complete picture.
The Luxdium spectrum for the Hydra replacement pucks is one of the best full spectrum LED offerings that matches the sun spectrum you showed. I’ll soon be swapping them on my Hydras.
I really love the gold option.
@@roryvermeulen5761 absolutely. my choice as well. So many additional deep blue and violet spectrum diodes added and the warm white.
Just ordered them for my hydra 52 🙌🏼
Great to see Thomas here.
This week was a blast :)
I'm new to reefing, currently running a biocube 32. You're giving me lots of information for my next tank probably a 120
Learning and planning is half the fun :)
A plus for Thomas and Matthew
I would love to see a video of what you've described 35 minutes into the video. Where using 21inch blades front to back to cover the tank. I've been debating on doing the exact same thing. Great video guys!!!
I like Thomas, can we have more of him please!
we shot 20 videos this week. There will be more :)
Ive had 1 blade grow and 1 Fluval sea 3.0 on my tank for 12 months and everything is going great.
Knew Thomas when we were just lads and he was always an excellent communicator.
This was actually extremely helpful for reptile keeping
A study published in the journal Plant, Cell & Environment found that plants exposed to direct sunlight had higher rates of photosynthesis than those exposed to indirect sunlight, even when the total amount of light received was the same. There are a litany of other studies with similar results.
Plants are different than corals and seem to be more dependent on red spectrum, but point taken. I may have overstated it in the live decision the point we were trying to get across is the hobby is so focused on recreating these super strong single points of light that we forget about the horizon-to-horizon source of blue light from the Sky and some of the most successful lighting solutions like t5 banks. So it is not that direct sunlight isn't important, it's that diffused blue light from all angles is important and in our application of a reef tank may just be more important.
At 5:30 you assert that prices end up dropping over time. I don't know about the rest, but Radions are ALWAYS selling for close to $1,000. Every generation. The older generations don't go down in price.
I think the point is that Radions existing, costing a lot, and being consumed by high-spend consumers boosts the WHOLE industry. It causes other more budget minded companies to come out with their own products, and in a matter of years, people are able to get high quality LED kits for a fraction of the cost of a Radion. And this is exactly what we've seen - there are a dozen or more companies making LED aquarium lighting kits, and you can tell by just browsing the forums for a few hours that virtually all of them will grow corals, which 10-20 years ago was simply not the case. Radions will probably always be the Mercedes Benz of aquarium lighting, and we will all continue to benefit from it.
I'm really happy I watched this, because I'm using 2 XR30, and an XR15 in a 4ft Aquatic Life hybrid fixture with 4x T5.
I am just going with 4 Radion in a fixed mount and a kessil a500 on a track that moves slowly on a track across the tank from east to west
With the idea of a reef being lit from horizon to horizon by the sky, and not the sun, I’m kinda shocked nothing was mentioned about the Neptune Sky lights.
Great video!
I would love to see how the kessil/reefbrite combo stacks up against the radion/blade combo.🎉
I’ve combined maxspect rsx 300 surrounded by 4 x orphek or3 blue plus over my tank and getting a great blanket of light, the corals growing very well.
Thanks! Very interesting!!!
Dang im just in time. I watched this series, and decided to go with 2 noopsyche k7 minis (old radion xr15 led array clone for $100 a pop) and a 36in aquatic life t5 with an actinic, coral plus on either side and a blue plus on the ends. Putting this over a waterbox 90.3 im picking up this weekend. The most i got out of this series is about shadowing and coverage/spread. Im gonna risk the cheaper leds and keep them low (65w each) mostly for color, and if they’re bad ill sell them and maybe be out $40…upgrade to ai or radion. Thank you so much for this info
Most of the points you point out were reasons why many of us were super resistant to switching to LEDs in the first place. A full spectrum 10-14K halide with PC/VHO 420nm fill lights provided the kind of spectrum and coverage you are advocating. But all our customers wanted slick LEDs with huge PAR. No conversation about spectral analysis could get them away from monochromatic 450/460nm "marine blue" lighting. I guess better late than never.
It's true that the information has been out there for a long time. We just need to keep sharing until a critical mass demands better. Part of the future is getting past LED , Halide or T5's. The conversation is "what does good to great light look like?"
@@BRStv I totally agree. I don't really care which tech ends up being the best for the hobby. At this point LED seems likely to make the most sense. It just seemed that the transition to LEDs focused on all the "wrong" features in my opinion, which you mentioned in the video. I was talking Peridinin-Chlorophyll protein complex and customers was like, "but does it make lightning storms?". Thanks for making this appeal to consumers. I never felt that us LFSs could really influence the design by complaining to sales reps, educating customers, or posting on forums. Your efforts here have the potential to make some changes in the market moving forward. I'm excited to see what companies come up with when they re-prioritize lighting features.
For me the Straton is aesthetically the most beautiful light. Dare I say I do like the Blades. I am not a fan of big clumps of lighting fixtures. A great series, some things to think about thanks very much.
it's a shame that the Straton got discontinued. Not sure if the new one will ever make it to the US. Only issue most of us had was the station's color profile was too green for me but it can be adjusted.
I was lucky enough to get 2x Straton's & a Kessil in the middle for shimmer - What a fantastic light. Super sleek. I happen to disagree with the 'Green' comment, but its UI is very intuitive & approachable. I will say that to hit max PAR, it has to be more white - wish it had more blue LEDs in it. Color on it looks amazing. I tend to hit more blue in the beginning & end of day when I'm usually home, and white during midday peaks.
@@adambegas3119 I was debating with myself if I should go for the Stanton or Kessils for my new tank. Prevous tanks of mine had Kessils as I love the shimmer. The thing that made me choose the Kessils was (believe it or not) was the hanging option for the Stanton.
@@jules2545 100% - thankfully t-slot is pretty easy to work with if you have the tools & 3D printer - made a minimalistic wall mount & looks super clean. But agree the hanging options for the straton are… well none.
I love the Blades' price point, too
I modular fixtures will be the future for most reefers :)
Laying down that knowledge!
Learn just a bit more every year :)
I am using 3 Orphek OR3 Blue plus and 1 Orphek UV and Kessil AP9X.
Giesemann Aurora V12.
Amasing spectrum, spread and shimmer.
Viking reefing has mad a greate video.
Hopefully Giesemann can figure out their US distribution and get them over here. Like the Straton, you can make a great light all you want but if you can't distribute it, it is DOA
I want to test one so bad :)
Throw one on the company card and ship it in 😂
well i dont have a light you sell. i did adjust the spectrum to as close as i could with my sliders and like it alot more than what i had. i just tweaked intensity to match the par i had.
Most of what we shared today can be used on other lights :)
I think it would be really cool to have a specialty version of the Grow with say 5 warm white LEDs spread across the length, that light up one at a time throughout the day to give that sunrise to sunset travelling bright focused light source for those nice white caustic lines, dancing on the overall blue sky light that stays lit the whole day.
I'd love to see a variety of Blades for different applications.
Bro, good idea!
Ever heard of acro optics? They are custom made to completely cover your tank. Everybody that I know who has them is in love with them
I am building an IM 50 gallon lagoon AIO Softie and LPS tank. I was 100% set on Kessil because I love the look and shimmering… I am 75% sure now that I’m going to do 2-3 AI Blades (alone) after this video and some of the others I’ve seen from you guys.
It’s also interesting if you look at the planted freshwater hobby a huge majority if not all of the tanks are using strip lights that give a blanket horizon to horizon light spread. I haven’t found it as common that they use “puck” lights.
kessil / blade combo of direct sun and the diffused sky would be awesome :)
If u want the amazing shimmer, get kessils with it
What about the Neptune Sky light? Is it not good enough to discuss on the show? Is there a way to correct the spectrum on this particular led light?
This is a bit more about how the tech works with a couple real-life examples. I wouldn't consider any of the lights that were not part of this discussion as bad options. I think the SKY's large form factor coupled with a bit more of the violet light from the blade glows would be a good option. In fact, I might use it myself on my office tank because the SKY's are already there.
How about Neptune come out with an add-on that has clean Apex integration and fixes the problem? For goodness sakes you guys make and recommended these things!
Illumagic by Dalua. I can control my color spectrum in real time and see it. But also with blades after.
Thank you for a really interesting topic.
Pro.
I currently use AB+ with has had much research and obviously the work carried out by the Horniman Museum and coral spawning.
Do you suggest modifying tithe schedule you set up reflecting the more natural look
Very interested I am going to do my own comparison for aesthetic purposes
Really interested in you thoughts with your better availability of recourses
Thanks
I understand t5 is old school now. My first tank used VHO lights. My brand new 300 gallon tank will have water in it in next month"ish" will be 2=4foot 8 bulb t5 fixtures.
Thank you BRS for bringing this topic to light. No pun. I am currently setting up a 210gal tank. I have always gone with kessil and a T5 hybrid combo hands down no questions. I love how simple they combo was, and is to use. But now, I am questioning 🤨 what light should I go with??? Even before watching this video. I was thinking of 2 orphek 60” blue plus and 3 a360x tuna blues. But I am still thinking about what to do now. I will have a mixed reef tank. Mixed reef has always been my favorite, and past lighting options I used worked fine.
If the goal is success go with what has worked for you in the past. However, you may have new goals this time, identify them and address them :)
Quanta bars. Or wait for their new lights.
i think the LED bars and a spot for shimmer if you want is the way to go. Quanta Reef looks great. cheap, albeit not controllable, mix and match the bars for the blend you want. Heavily based on spectrum, no shortage of good wavelength LEDs. Orphek or3s too for that matter. you guys should really get ahold of some quantas and add them to the data pool
To be honest, people have been talking about blanket coverage forever. There are still tons of people who advise using t5 or halides. Im never surprised at the lengths a salesman will go to sell a product. Beware friends, some lights will be phased out soon for a better product because of this experiment!
Really enjoyed this video. I'm in the process of gathering equipment for a 90 gallon clownfish harem build and the lighting and the flow are the two places I'm stuck. I'm considering building a closed loop system with a separate refugium attached to the tank using gravity feed, and for lighting I genuinely have no clue exactly wh as t I want to do.
Last time I did this (9 years ago) we tried a variety of lights and hands down t5's were the best. Under LEDs they dwindled and under t5, they thrived. Back then we would have chalked it up to t5's are just better. However, now we know LED lights were just not built or used poorly back then. Pick something that covers a wide area, has a wide spectrum and tune it with a par meter. Alternatively, pick a t5 fixture, skip the work, and accept that it is physically kinda obtrusive but works 100% of the time.
Excellent info. Rarely do I learn something completely new and profound.
One day at a time :) Always something new out there. Sometimes we find it intentionally, and sometimes we stumble upon it..
So bottom line it for a newb: ideal light set up for 40B mixed reef softy/LPS heavy.
Hi Guys
Is there a schedule for the radion based on your spectrum findings that you've been talking about.
Need a blade that features more diode density and is an arch shape slightly adjustable to tank sizes. Sun movement setting would be key while blasting the BRS light settings.
Hey Guys great video. Is there any chance of reviewing the Reefi Uni Pro 2? I've seen comments popping up all over about how good they are.. yet I can't find any reviews of this light from you guys?
I would love to find something like the WS2812 programmable LEDs but with coral-specific LEDs. Then, you could just custom-cut an aluminum plate to your desired shape and more or less blanket it with these “reef beads”. Hundreds of 3W dots that are programmable from a microcontroller like a crazy Xmas light display.
Then, have some cloud-connected par meters providing real-time spectrum information on reefs (or coral farms) around the world and feed that into the lights.
Thank you for this fantastic information and just for the record, I'm happy to hear more about the AI Blade and appreciate your direct recommendations of certain products. I have the Waterbox 90.3 DX, do you think 1 glow and 1 grow would work for a predominately LPS reef tank.
I would like to know this also
I'm all for getting it right. But are we evaluating placement of the light and white and blue lighting. What does the percentage of the white and blue lighting needs to be at lower hanging. So Sanjay was right all along by bursting whites all day ?
I really appreciated this lighting series. Looking forward to the flow series. Did you experiment to find the best channel mix for the Sky to mimic the natural spectrum as for the Radions? If so can you please share the mix?
How about the spectrum on a Radion G6 15 Blue. ?? Thank you
Water filters out a lot of light at 100ft-500ft. So theoretically, we want that spectrum that matches at those depths with similar spread.
Almost every coral in the hobby is collected within 30ft. The collectors dive as deep as they can on one breath. That is it. Anyone collecting deepwater stuff is very, very rare
99.9% of the corals collected for our hobby a collected via free diving, so as deep as you can go while holding your breath and doing a reasonable amount of work at the bottom. The spectrum at depths of 10-20 meters are not materially different than what we discussed. www.deep-six.com/page77.htm or letstalkscience.ca/educational-resources/backgrounders/ocean-zones
You do notice when a cloud covers the sun, it absolutely gets darker out. All of us have been standing there and been like whoa it just got darker, and looked up a cloud covered the sun. Now that has to do with the density of the cloud and the size of it but I understand the concept you are trying to explain.
So I'm new to reef tank I'm building my first reef tank ever and is a 4ft wide and 19 inches deep I have bought 2 kessil a360x would that be enough to grow corals for a mixer reef tank ?what should I do to have success in growing corals?
Has anyone considered getting a focal point light source like a Kessil, and mounting them in a giant reflector like a Halogen? Really seams like it would be an amazing solution for spreading the light source.
Yes, Ive been thinking about that for years. Then when the Kessil 500x came out I was convinced Tulio from Reef Brite would come out with something to reflect the 500x to work like halides. Shimmer and controlability!
Philips Coral Care 2x, 4x 54w T5 Ati blue plus, 2x 122cm Blade Glow on a 120x80 cm tank
Xr15 pro's and blade glows is the direction I'm leaning
What about the XHO’s ? Are they blade substitutes? And the SKY from Neptune ?
XHO's , OR3's and other strips are all legit. However, many strips are primarily based on 450 royals and don't give you violet or near UV spectrums. The blade has the 450 royals if you want them but you can also tune them down and overdrive the other channels. There is a lot more flexibility. The Sky is a big pannel that performed well in our shadow and distribution tests. I think would do even better flanked with the glow blades to add more violet or chlorophyll A range light.
Blades are a game changer. I’m using Red Sea 90 now and it works well, but if I was starting over I would go with AI blades.
The red sea 90 with Blade glows is a great 3-point option. I'd keep the royal blue at 0% but overdrive the violets / near UV and then tune to PAR
@@BRStv I was actually convinced by this video to get Blades in addition to RS Reef LED 90. Why would you recommend glow over grow? Why is glow more expensive for the same size?
@@GenePlotkinthe violet spectrum in the glow is important to chlorophyll A. The glows are more expensive because the violet leds cost more than royal blues and cool whites. That’s also the same reason why the violets are not in entry level lights.
So what should the setting be for a ai prime 16hd to get the sun spectrum?
Hey. Did you use the neptunes sky in your experiment at any point?
Hi Thomas!
Hi Janine!!!! Long time!!!
Are you still in GTA? What’s up with the red sided dace habitat? My daughter and I are trying to figure out why Doug Ford hates the Credit River.
@Ryan - I know you can’t give exact numbers but how have the blade sales been so far? I would imagine pretty strong?
We will share this in an upcoming video, but the number one most popular light this year is the AI prime. This is determined by what reefers pick up from us. However, as an entire line, it is the Blade by a mile. Probably partially because the blade is not limited to just new installs but also makes existing installs better. The audience is just a lot bigger than most lights, so it is not a fair comparison. The prime is very popular with smaller tanks and new tank installs, there are a lot of smaller tanks, so not surprised about this one either.
So off your website Sky seems pretty close to what we are looking for. I have talked about the importance of coverage over PAR. As your WWC video showed. Could you do same test on the Sky’s? I’m running 3 on a 6ft tank but was thinking of running a 4ft for better coverage or after seeing this adding some blades ?
hey brstv good discussion! can you guys please review the illumagic X4 lights? Please ! :)
Weed growers use full spectrum led lights
Also glass filters uv a and b light that's why you don't get sunburned through a closed window
Cool white
warm white
Blue
Red
Uv
Infrared combo is what you need
So glass lids are bad if you want uv in the the tank
I just saw this video and I appreciate everything BRS offers to us to improve our results! I do have a few questions tho. If the atmosphere scatters blue light then you say basically for that reason the reef ends up primarily lit by blue. Well then there's the ocean water column over the corals. Further filtering out the rest of the spectrums ? ( red, yellow, green etc). Which means if you take a spectrometer down 20 ft and measure the light right next to a wild acropora colony. Would you measure only 450nm and less? Would be interesting for someone to verify.
Next, I'm a 20 year MH user recently now using LED. My 14k MH would grow my corals way faster than my Radion adjusted heavy in the blue. And the MH is more of a point source similar to the sun , the radion lights more evenly like the sky. So why is the MH performance better if it's doing the opposite of what is suggested in this video? Thanks guys. Good work on these videos!
Red light is filtered out by water correct? So coral technically don’t use it… however red will increase par levels correct? Am I understanding this properly? So Par while a great piece of data it can be misleading?
PAR can absolutely be misleading. I could create a light with 1000 PAR and only use green LEDs. If we don't have a general idea of what the spectrum is, PAR is pointless.
Red will be filtered out at deeper water levels in a reef, but many of the corals are collected shallower than that. The Importance of red is not entirely agreed upon by reefers or biologists. It will measure as PAR but it would be rare for anyone to use enough to materially change PAR. Probably taking 5 par at LPS levels and 30 PAR at SPS.
@@BRStv Grazie. What about green same thing?
@@raisethereef agreed 👍🏼
I’m new to this with used gen4 radion lights. Would you suggest I can use the settings you showed ? As a beginner?
As a beginner, I would 100% use one of the presets like the AB+. You just want a successful tank and that is more likely to achieve that than tweaking it for the first time.
I'm guessing the lumi lights would be a good budget option as well
Have you guys looked at using grow lights like Mars hydro or spider farmer?
We haven't used those. There are so many lights and configurations we typically limit ourselves to what's on the shelves here and can be pulled quickly. Seems like the right thing to do for reefers who trust us to sell gear we believe in and desire information on how to use it.
Makes sense, there is so much money poured into the grow light R&D, probably the wrong kind of spectrum though.
Those are garbage lights
I’m new to reefing and have a 40 gallon aquatop cube tank. Looking to upgrade my lighting. Based on this video I’m thinking either AI Blades or Radion. Looking for opinions from those experienced in the hobby.
I have a 120 gal tank 48" long 24" wide with 2 Radion XR30 Pro gen 5 I watch your other positioning videos from the past how high to mount how far apart to mount to cover the tank with proper lighting. My question is should I add a Radion XR 15 pro to cover the sunrise to sunset or just add the AI blade as a light fill and if so should it be the grow??? I'm fairly new but still learning
I'm going to try Fiji spectrum on my radions.
Is there a Radion profile file we can download and import into the light?
Still using my 4’ T5 lights over my 6’ tank. Looks like I’m adding blades to the end of my aquarium.
If the sunlight hits a diffusion pane, why are there shadows?
Phillips CoralCare Gen 2’s are awesome lights accomplishing everything hobbyists want. I use them over an sps dominated 90 g. BRS doesn’t carry them anymore and the hobby never took to them which is really unfortunate for the hobby.
I also thought they were "the one" only issue was a bit lower par than similar options in its class. No one bought them so we eventually had to clearance them. They are big when small is cool, they are heavy when everyone wants easy, they are balanced to the white when everyone wants blue, and they have a wired control box when everyone wants wireless apps. Funtiuonaly a great product for the application but missed the US market entirely.
I'm surprised there aren't more halogen/t5 hybrid options.
so my IT2040 24inch, inside my home made canopy at 1inch high of my 24x24x18 inch tank,with no lenses, plus 2x ati plus...for the last 9years ...
was finally i good idea !
no more shame on me thank ! 😂
Bro looks blazed af 😂
I am new to the hobby, and LOVE this information. Is there any information or studies about the use of Blue lighting at night to replicate the moon glow, when this video clearly shows moon-light is probably the only white light that the reef might see?
There are plenty of studies that definitively prove the moon dictates when the corals spawn.
So are we supposed to not use LEDs any longer
Does this mean that Red Sea’s focus on PUR rather than PAR makes more sense?
So do you recommend using the tuned radion settings you showed on this live vs the one in the color episode where royal blue was 33%?
Id recommend getting close and making minor tweaks that make it pleasant to the eye and meet PAR needs.
@@BRStv Great thats kinda what I assumed, think ill stick around the 33% settings for the better par. Thank you!
I prefer reef factory reef flare bars to fill in from the sides as an additional supplemental lights. 🎉
The design and lenses look a lot like the OR3 from orphek . We haven't tested them, but i'd expect them to perform similarly.
Wish you had done Blades with Kessil A360x
I got question abt led here.
What r key different effects between led in single-point format like ai prime 16hd vs multiple-point format like ai blade?
Why single point tends to cost more?
Single points produce more shadows. The reason they cost more is the typically have wider spectrum LEDs and fewer LED's . Single points also require active cooling.
@@BRStv thx sir. So the shimmering effect and strong power are the key selling point of single point format
going home to canada? thought he was in Minnesota?
I'm a Canadian! I work remotely in an igloo!
So we should make a tank lid that mimics what the sky does to the light
Always wondered if aerogel would do that. www.modlar.com/brands/solera/solera-s-r9aerogel-light-diffusing-glass-unit/ or solarinnovations.com/news/case-studies/lumira-aerogel/
So no testing of brands not owned by BRS ?
Drinking game idea. Take a shot every time Ryan says Horizon to Horizon.
So is it the AI BLADE the reason why this works. Or will any led strips get similar results? Like reefbrite or red sea led bars
Almost any strip will be an improvement. In our tests, the blade was significant;y higher par, had a wider spread wider spectrum and has more adjustable channels than the other strips we tested. That combo made it better for our applications.
Blade is better than XHO and in my opinion the XHO was the strip light to beat for many years. Unless you needed to mount your lights 20” over the tank
So there saying T5’s still simulate the sun and the sky better then some compact leds with no filter,I’ll be saving for all blades thanks they look fantastic but are expensive