# Lights are Here! 48" LED ReefBar Review



## woody019 (Oct 4, 2012)

So it ordered these from eBay monay because I want to get rid of the LED fixtures with 90 degree lense I already have of the tank (4 x Reefbar Combo 4ft Aquarium LED Light Reef Bar 48" inch 48 140W Grow Coral | eBay). I talked to coralbandit a while ago about something about lighting and remembered he said something about these so I said the heck with it ill give them a try before I make the jump into the top tier name brand LED fixtures. 

Im going to review everything that I can. FIRST let me start with the shipping, I am fuming mad with FedEx right now! the shipping was fast but when it was shipped the guy you transported it to my house threw the box 5 ft up from the bottom stair on the front porch just as I was opening the screen door. So the box is dented right now and thought I would post this before I make a video review and open this box. So lets see how the seller packaged the inside of the box......!!! I will have updates as I go


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## Reefing Madness (Aug 12, 2011)

For that kind of money I'd have gone with something a bit different myself.
120W Oceanrevive S026 LED Aquarium Light Dimmable Full Spectrum LPS SPS Lamp | eBay
New Dimmable 165W LED Aquarium Grow Light Full Spectrum Reef Coral Plant VEG | eBay


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## woody019 (Oct 4, 2012)

Thank the lord the lights are ok! I will go on about the shipping and packaging, my opinions and then make a list of pros/cons. I will upload photos later because I have to get through them all and pick the ones to go on the highlight or bloopers list. If there is something specific anyone wants to hear about or wants a picture off just ask and ill more then gladly ask/post. I took a bunch of video's that I have to edit together that will end up on youtube, The video will have a lot of stuff that ill miss posting here or can better explain talking rather then through message.

Only thing that happened was some of the mounting brackets if thats what they call them were bent and a 2 spots out of all the bars (heat sinks) were dented other then that they are fine and straight as can be. The packaging was horrible. The drivers cords and remotes were freely moving through the 4ft box and. The bars themselves were thoughtfully wrapped together metal facing out but thats as far as the person thought. The only thing holding the bars together was some thinly wrapper foam wrap about 6-8" up the very ends of the bars. 

Im not sure if I read the options on the eBay site wrong or maybe its just that the seller messed up my order. Either way I'm not gonna put the blame on either of us because we may never find out. But I thought I ordered (2/12K white), (1/2:1 bar with a ratio 2x12k to 1xRB), and (1/Actinic ALL RB). I ended up with 1 white, 2(2:1) and 1 RB. Not a huge deal, what it does at full power is make the tank crisp white instead of the light blue (12,000K) color that I wanted. Also not matter how I adjust the brightness on the 2 drivers the water color comes purple. Doesn't look bad just not what I wanted.

But this is what I'm going to do about that. Instead of getting up all tight and asking for an exchange for what I wanted Im going to wait until my next package comes next tuesday. Long story short I ordered a Seneye "controller" and PAR meter mainly just for the par meter. It was only $200 and when compared in an actual test against an Apogee PAR meter ($500) the numbers were of by a Negligible amount and both units were off the true value (measured by using very expensive scientific grade equipment) by the same %error. So i pulled the trigger on one, thinking it would be nice to be able to tell if these reefbars can back up what they said and at the same time be able to back my opinions with some actual numbers. Although Im not going to give you 100% accurate numbers I will at least be able to get reference numbers that unless your looking to publish a scientific article can believe with a grain of salt.

OK for those of you that know about everything thing behind reef lights please don't go off on me haha the next statement is dumbed down for length purposes. If the PAR numbers and the LED emmitance spectrum come back with some decent numbers (fixable by buying reasonable amount of more bars) or even good numbers, I will buy at least 2 more bars to get an even amount of same colored bars and mix them in a row the same to get an even blend of colors throughout the tank because right now they don't but at the same time isn't totally apparent. Plus later on ill be able to get reference numbers and spots to better judge where to place future coral. 

Now onto the PRO's that I can think of at this point- 
1) Durable heat sinks (the actual body of the reefbar)
-Couldnt tell you how hot they get my hood has 2 120mm vantec stealth fans
2) Very clean crisp light that gives the desired shimmering effect on the sand
3) With the correct amount of bars the light distribution is very very good.
4) To my eyes light penetration looks to be good but only the numbers will tell the truth
5) Royal blues are good at making corals pop
6) price
7) package deals come with wireless controllers and drivers.
8) Daisy change connections are snug and water tight.

Cons- 
1) Length of power cords are too short 
2) Mounting brackets suck both flimsy and very little options on how to mount them and makes it very difficult to get the bar level to the water.
3) the last bar in the daisy chain's male connection isn't capped and unless you put some dielectric grease on it is exposed to the surround air
4) the receiver for the remote is between the driver and LED bar closet to the bar and is short so mine got stuck in the hood. (will have to get a couple 2.5mm extension cables).

Thats all I have for now. As I think of more things you should know I will post them! Hope you enjoyed the reading haha Hope this helped people out more then anything I could find after hours of searching. I will provide some numbers accurate enough that can be used to base an educated decision with next weeks. Until the next time I post feel free to ask questions or for pics I will answer them ASAP.


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## woody019 (Oct 4, 2012)

Reefing Madness* I had 2 of the 165W fixtures on before these on the tank. Didn't like them due a few factors. But the two main factors are that they are very hard to get dialed into percent power you need for your specific tank. That fact that they don't spread light very well. You can just about tell the shape on it in the water and the light under it is very intense even at 25-30%. Then you have all the dead space around the light not to mention. They say a it covers a 2ft by 2ft area but it's more like a 12"x18" area being very generous. I got either very little light or very intense light no in between. Plus the price of the reefbars and the fixtures you listed would come out to a neglagitable price difference considered a 75g tank needs 2 165w fixtures. 

The 165watt fixtures would work a lot better on a tank deeper then 24" of water.

I will do a comparison of the two when I get the PAR meter. Numbers don't lie haha


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## woody019 (Oct 4, 2012)

Pros contd. - 
Can link up to 3 48" bars onto 1 driver
Audition compatible for $50
They sell an upgraded Reefbar pro with 3 watt LED's
- Available in full spectrum, ultra actinic and ultra atinic pro
Cons contd. -
Reefbar isn't astetically pleasing with all the daisy chained wires if you don't have a hood 
The 2.5mm connection from the driver into the bar isn't very snug and doesn't take much of a tug to disconnect them. A little electrical tape will fix that issue though. 

Here are a couple pics of the tank with the reefbars 5" above the water surface all at full power and another with just the one 12k white bar I have at full power. Bars aren't hard installed yet and aren't even close to being perfectly level with the water surface, keep this mind.


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## Reefing Madness (Aug 12, 2011)

woody019 said:


> Reefing Madness* I had 2 of the 165W fixtures on before these on the tank. Didn't like them due a few factors. But the two main factors are that they are very hard to get dialed into percent power you need for your specific tank. That fact that they don't spread light very well. You can just about tell the shape on it in the water and the light under it is very intense even at 25-30%. Then you have all the dead space around the light not to mention. They say a it covers a 2ft by 2ft area but it's more like a 12"x18" area being very generous. I got either very little light or very intense light no in between. Plus the price of the reefbars and the fixtures you listed would come out to a neglagitable price difference considered a 75g tank needs 2 165w fixtures.
> 
> The 165watt fixtures would work a lot better on a tank deeper then 24" of water.
> 
> I will do a comparison of the two when I get the PAR meter. Numbers don't lie haha


Hmm, I've got an 8' tank, and only run 2 of them on mine. You can see them in my pics, looks fine to me, I don't care to have every square inch lit.


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## woody019 (Oct 4, 2012)

It's not that's I want every inche lite but a gradual step up not go from not enought light to coral bleaching. Idk probably have the crappy Chinese knockoff and didnt like the results its was giving after 6 months


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## woody019 (Oct 4, 2012)

Just an update. After two days my corals were starting to gain some color and extend more. Thats about all I can say as of right now, long story shorty I broke the tube extruding from my skimmer body trying to retrofit a new pump. Tried fixing the skimmer with weld-on but its still leaking.So I haven't had a skimmer for 4 days and none of my corals are very happy right about now. 

Just ordered a SRO-2000s from BRS today and Im going to have to wait for that to break in and things to settle down in the tank. Other then the par meter coming in tomorrow it will be a while before I can post a legitimate update.


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## woody019 (Oct 4, 2012)

Received my PAR meter today and did some testing on a variety of lights. I wasn't to in depth with the testing but enough to get a good idea of the par level at different depths at 100% power. The numbers are in on the reefbar and the results are disappointing especially after I measured the actual water depth (sand bed to water surface) in my 75g tank. But after some though on why my first impressions were off, I think I came upon some good conclusions. 

Before anyone gets on here and starts to questions the validity of the numbers I used a seneye par meter (from what I read, under LED's reads the same as an apogee). These are NOT scientifically correct values. I know this, the numbers are close enough to get a general idea of how intense the light at different levels of the tank and for later use to find the "hot/cold" spots in the tanks and what spectrum of light certain spots are getting for better coral placement. Now that I got that out of the way! *r2

The numbers are on average of 4 reefbars- 
1) Right under bar: ~320
2) Just under the surface of the water: ~180
3) Middle of water column: ~70
4) Sand bed:~35
*Test was taken at 100& brightness. Actual tank water depth is 17". 4 Reefbars spaced exactly 2" apart from each other with the center of the lights being over the middle of the rock structure. Bars are 5" above surface of the water (the closest I could possibly get them with my set up and mounting options).

Yes really low numbers but I got thinking about the numbers in respect to the reefbar specs, numbers and the way I mounted them and here is my latest conclusions. Keeping in mind numbers could go up at least a little bit with say no spacing between bars and mounting closer to water surface.

They won't support much of any corals at depth. This is due mostly to the fact that to the individual LED wattage and having a 140 degree projection angle.

The reason why I believe before I broke my skimmer my corals were expanded more and seemed to have more color. Is one they aren't getting enough light and two after taking a look at the spectral emmittance in comparison to my previous LED fixture (ill post those number later when I have more time). The reefbars peak wavelength is in the 420-430nm range the previous fixture was in the 450-460nm range.

*After I put all of the above together, I got to thinking there have to be some positive things that could make another person want to buy the reefbars.*

Here are my educated opinions - 

1) If you need supplement lighting to light up the entire tank evenly or just want a moonlight to make your tank really pop with color with very clean and crisp light at a reasonable cost these are for you. They will easily remove eyesore darkspots and/or make coral corals really vibrant and pleasing to look at. 

2) They would be a great option to really light up a FOWLR tank at a very reasonable cost a bright, dimple LED fixture, with low power consumption and have the option for a cheap audrino "sunsetter" unit if you don't have a reef angel or apex unit. You could also add a freshwater tank in this category. I wouldn't at this point recommend the reefbar for a planted FW tank or reef tank.

On a side note* - They do make better/stronger lighting LED light bar with 3 watt LED's with 90 degree lenses that I could most likely be safe to say have higher par numbers. It is called the Reefbar PRO. Someone might want to give it a try on a mixed soft and LPS coral tank and give us a review. Both the reefbar and reefbar pro can be order anywhere from 12-48" in length.

I personally am done spending money on cheap/affordable experimental lights on ebay and have to tinker with the figuxe all the time to get close to what I am looking for/ need. All my cheap purchases over an extended period of time are starting to add up to a not so very cheap total amount. My next lighting purchase in the very near future will be an investment into LED fixture(s) from a top tier, proven manufacturer.


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