Ebay Chinese LED 165 Watt lights "Black Box Lights"

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Pcollins0901

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Dec 28, 2016
Messages
236
Location
Prestonsburg, KY
I have had my 100 gallon 6' tank running for several months now. I am running 3 of the 165 Watt Chinese LED lights on the system. The lights were purchased under the name of Wellspar on Ebay. They are the ones with the built in timer. Two channels. White, red, and green and actinic on the second channel.

I have added several soft corals to the system. Including, assortment of zooanthids, green toadstool, GSP, green polyps, a green torch (arriving tomorrow), and a mushroom frag from a friend).

Fish include, sailfin tang, yellow tang, royal gramma, two ocellaris clown fish, one sand sifting sea star, 50 snails (turbo, nerite, etc) and 10 small.blue leg hermit crabs. Also, one rock anomene (I think). The nem was purchased at LFS and was told it was a long tentacle, which it isn't.

As I stated the tank is 72" X 18 x 18. It's called a 100 long and not very common. Please, no tang police. I am aware of the sailfin but keep in mind this is a 6' tank and IMO better for tangs than the common 4' 125 gallon.

Sump has fug with and deep sand bed, some live rock and chaeto Macro inside. Pods arriving tomorrow.

Back to the the lights. What I'm running right now.

3 165 watt lights hanging from ceiling 11" from water.
Whites and actinic from 6AM-2PM. Actinic on 40% and whites at 20%. 2PM to midnight actinic only. Then lights out until 6AM.

Im new to corals so I don't really know what's optional based on the corals reactions. Everything seems to be opening and extending.

Anyone out there running these lights? If so, what is the schedule and intensity are u running the lights?

Thanks
 
Im running a single mars aqua, 2 channel, no built in timer. Roughly 16" above a 29 gal tank (30×18×12). Have some softies, couple Lps and birds nest. Coral has only been in for a few weeks but everything has responded well, shown growth and behaving as I've read it should. A Duncan frag closed and hasn't opened in a couple weeks though?? Not sure what his deal is. Whites (30%) on 8 hrs and actnic (%70) on 10hrs. I have egg crate/light diffuser on the top and that cuts penetration a bit.
 
They seem to be great at the price point from what iv read online. Thing that's concerning to me is the colors of some corals in my tank are totally different under actinic than other tanks with different lights. For example, I have some GSP a friend gave me recently. With whites it's green. Under my actinic it's almost a orange color and glowing. In his under actinic it's a bright green? Wonder what gives?
 
Color spectrum affects what corals look like. You can saturate the color to pop with heavy blue. Not really natural, but people like it and how it looks. There is a delicate balance between the usable white and blue spectrum in terms of growth and coral health. No lighting will show one coral the same, plain and simple.
These lights will grow coral amazingly. Many members over the years have used them successfully, to where I will suggest them for people trying to reef on a budget. We've all been there at one point.

EDIT: When it comes to amount of time being on, I wouldn't keep lights on longer than 10 hours. In terms of intensity, I haven't run my LEDs over 65% intensity. One of the best LFS that I've been to ran there's over 60%.
 
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Thanks Sniper Hawk. The more in increase my intensity on actinic the more sharp orange the "green corals" appear. I do like the lights, but I also want my corals to look different under actinic as that's one of the things that makes the hobby so fun. Im.going to play with them some. I have some blue eye zoe, and cherry red that will be here tomorrow. So I will be able to.see their colors and see what they look like under actinic.
 
I have the same set up on my 6 foot 125 gallon tank. I don't use the same time schedule but these lights are so much better the VHO bulbs I had for 15 yrs. You should have adequate lighting now.
 
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