Read this and compare to the REEF lights, if you're interested in putting one of these lights on your tank.I received my 24-36 in. Marineland Double Bright LED Light 8 x 1W white 4 x .06W blue and was delighted when the light finally arrived.
The fixture packaging was simple, yet sturdy and protective of the light fixture. It comes with two parts: the main body and the power cord. Easy, no brainer, installation!
Just so you know, this light is going on top of a heavily planted, freshwater, 30 gallon tank, with the dimensions of, 30x18.5x12in. WxHxD
Look wise, what was truly attractive, was the body being slim and sleek. No more clunky hood to stare at anymore!
After reading the directions, a disappointing tidbit, was that Marineland (manufacturer label) required and recommended that the light be placed on a tank with clear acrylic or glass covers to protect the LEDs from water damage.
My original intention was to leave the light directly above the tank, using the built in brackets it comes with.
The unit is completely silent. A big difference for those that have fans for high output light that run very hot.
The light output itself was sufficient, while not being the brightest I've seen. It doesn't fill the tank with light like most lights do. It lights up the tank like how the sun lights up water when it shines through it. It's like the light waves on the bottom of a pool when the sun is shining through the moving water surface. Imagine the shimmery effect in water, but with eight fill sources of light gleaming into the tank and bouncing off the tank floor. That's the natural feel (almost mesmerizin strobe); unlike other lights which completely fill the tank with light.
Because of that effect, the light doesn't look like it's putting out intense light. There are shadows and light waving almost everywhere with darker sides (width wise) to the tank. The darkness might be due to the fixture not completely spanning the width of the tank (the brackets expand so to fill the gap spaces).
As for the LED lights, there are eight of the white lights that are split into two rows (4+4). The row of four moonlights are between the two rows of white light lights (white+moon+white).
The LED lights throw very very little heat, to the point they can be called cool lights. Don't expect them to heat your tank. They are physically touchable without burning your skin like regular light fixtures would.
Curious and of interest, is when the fixture is turned on to white daylight, not only are the white LEDs on, but the moonlights are on also at the same time. When you switch to night mode, only the moonlights are on.
Some people have complained that because there isn't a separated switch for the white and moonlights it becomes cumbersome to have to manually change the light between modes when you have the light on a timer. It's TRUE! Marineland, should make a solution to that problem and I'm sure many more people would buy the light due to the ability to put the lights on a timer with no fuss. The two reasons I could think of why they didn't do so: 1) it costs more *not a good excuse* 2) because the moonlights are turned on in daylight mode, the lifespan of the moonlights would be extremely unproportionate to the lifespan of the white LEDs (assuming white and moonlight LEDs last the same amount of time).
The expected LED life on the box is 16,000 hours of usage. So assuming you used your daytime lights 8-12 hours a day and at night your moonlights only, 12-16 hours.
Your moonlights would FAIL in 667 days (16,000/24hours), compared to 1333-2000 days (16,000/12hours & 16,000/8hours) of white LED use.
That's a big difference (lifewise) and enough to justify to not leave the moonlight on, unless you really want it for constant viewing in moonlight mode.
Quick conclusion:
If you're looking for a new look and are able to cover the LED expense, look past minor annoyances and like a natural wave strobe, this is the light for you. Good luck with it! I certainly, enjoy mine!
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P.S. So far the plants in the tank are doing fine after two weeks. I'll update in a month or so to let everyone know if they are sufficing my plants.
Part 2: Review May 21, 2011
It's been about a month and a half with the Double Brights 24"-36" lights and I have to say it's becoming apparently disappointing. The plants in my 30G freshwater tank that usually do well in moderate to high light are browning and failing. It just isn't sufficient enough in the parts where the beam of light doesn't shine directly on. Even with the beam directly on the plant, it's hard to sustain growth due to the awkward size of the light, being smaller than the tank, not spanning the full length to the sides.
With that, I decided to invest in a Marineland Reef LED of the same size. I still like the concept of LED and its benefits in comparison to T5, MH lighting. I'll try posting a review in of that light under that comment section.
As for the difference compared to the Double Brights, WHAT A DIFFERENCE!! I've been looking up more forums and upon Marinelands' own FAQ section one person asked if the 'Reef' lights are usable for planted tank in freshwater and the reply from an official representative was that they actually recommend using the REEF light if you're going to do a planted tank.
I would completely agree with that statement. The difference is night and day. The double brights produce a warmer temperature color of light 6,000K and the reef model cooler, 10,000K. The difference is BRIGHT white. If you're looking for a warm color go with the double brights, but if you're looking for white light output go REEF. I have the two side by side and you can obviously tell that one part of the tank is yellow and the other full daylight white. I'm guessing the amount of LED's and calibration does make a big difference (being the Reef's has more). The Actinic blue output is also "louder" in comparison, from 60mW to 1W.
There are some downfalls comparatively, but they're nominal depending on what you're looking for.
Double Bright vs. Reef Lights
1. Price. Upfront, the REEFs are more expensive, but if you count the amount of LED fixtures in them, cost per light Reefs are cheaper.
2. Color temperature. The Double's are warmer 6,000K, REEFs 10,000K
3. Double brights don't give as much light coverage as the Reefs do in the tank.
4. REEFs do run hotter on the top of the unit. It's warm/hot on the heat sink fins. Not scalding.
5. REEFs have a higher energy consumption vs the double brights, but with more lights I think it's well worth it.
6. Double brights have approx. 17,000 hours of life, REEFs 50,000 hours!
7. The moonlight comparison has the 'Double bright lights' feeling weak, REEFs are strong.
So if you can get past without needing a Reef light, do so. But the one persuasion that might make it all worthwhile is that the Reef model has 50,000 hours vs the 17,000 hours of use before light diminishes 30% in output intensity.
Its very slim and sleek when resting on the aquarium the top of the light is maybe 1.5 inches from the glass very low profile.
The only problem the blue night lights run all day with the regular lights, but are on the same switch, so you cant set a timer to make it so all the lights are on all day and the blue all night, you have to manually switch on the blue to use it. It will be relatively simple to install a new switch to do this, but requires time, parts, a new power supply, voiding warranty, etc ,etc. Would have been much better if they were separately controlled.
I bought the 48" LED for my 4 foot tank, and it looks great, but I sometimes wish I had gone with the 36". It would leave 6 inches "unlit" on each side, but it would give a pretty cool effect I think, and is $100 cheaper. You can get two 36" for the price of one 48." I mainly got the 48" because it is more powerful with more lights and I was thinking it would be able to support plants better. After being set up a couple weeks the plants are doing well, but we'll see how it does long-term.
Also you never have to replace bulbs. On a planted tank this is a major expense if you want to keep the bulbs producing usable light. This light claims to last 5 years before replacement, while most power compact and T8-T5 bulbs say 6-12 months or less, and are all fairly costly. This combined with the low energy consumption of the LED makes it much cheaper long-term.
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I have used this light for a 10 gallon tropical fishtank for the last three months and am very pleased. I have fairly easy-to-maintain aquatic plants which are all growing very well even without CO2, although I use fertilizer and iron sometimes. Only some of the the very small foreground plants struggle a little bit. At first it seemed that the light does not reach into all corners of the tank but the plants seemed to grow regardless. I had to prune plants several times. The design is very sleek and there is no heat created by the light. LED gives the water a beautiful shimmer. Fish look nice, but the colors are not quite as brilliant as in my other fish tank with flourescent lights. Interestingly the less colorful fish look better. Although all fish and plants are doing well I wish it were a tad brighter to bring out the colors of the fish.After one year: It works very well for planted aquarium and seems to cause less algae growth than flourescent light.
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I bought this unit to replace a Coralife 36" (2X96 fan cooled Freshwater 6700K) unit. I live in El Paso and my tank is under a sky-light. Due to the abundance of natural light, I don't really need much for things to grow. I run the light about 5 hours a day (6 to 11PM).Prosruns much cooler than my Coralife. I like the natural color of the LED units over the 6700K Coralife. Very low profile(may be a + or depending on your taste).
Consnot a salt water or coral light. Not enough light for that. Marineland would need to double the LED count to come close. Cannot run just the blue lights separately, should have had two cords for use of timers with the unit. Use of power adapter a little cheap and flimsy compared to the two three prong power cords of the Coralife. Coralife has much more light output, can change the bulbs for different color needs (salt, fresh, plant, coral, etc)
Because I don't need a bunch of light, I like the unit and will keep it.
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I have a 55 gallon aquarium, 48" long rectangular. Nothing special. For a long time I've had a 48" fluorescent twin tube light, but was getting algae. The "Pet Store Guy" said to turn my lights on more, and it should help get rid of the algae. The only problem, my bulbs were as old as the fixture, and not putting out the UV light they need to in order to kill the algae. He did say that if my bulbs were old, it may not help that much. He was right. When I started looking at replacing the bulbs, they were $15-$20 each. That means $80 a year. He mentioned LED lighting, and so I started looking.When I saw this, I realized it would pay for itself in just over 2 years. Pretty cool! I couldn't 1-click buy this fast enough.
When I put it on my setup, it took a bit to get used to the lighting. The Marineland Double Bright is pretty blue intensive. I was used to the full spectrum thrown by my florescent. This thing is very bright, as bright or brighter than the twin fluorescent. I've had it now for about 3 weeks, the algae growth has slowed to a minimum (My pleco is keeping up with it easily), and I'm very happy.
It's plenty of light for plants, but I have Silver Dollars, and well, you know ...
Another plus is the fact that this light does not affect the temperature in the tank nearly as much. I noticed the temp dropped 2 degrees. It now has the temperature I set on the heater, which is awesome. I like the way this light does not sit directly on the top of the aquarium. It's legs lift it about 2 inches above the rim (I use glass covers) and looks really nice. Also being smaller, it's easier to get to my filters and what not.
I only have 2 complaints:
Lunar mode is on the same switch as regular. Can't activate it with a timer. I'm trying to think of a way to make it happen. Also, to go from regular to lunar (or back) has to go through the off position, this really bothers my fish.
17,000 hours seems like a really short life span. At 12 hours a day, that's 1416 days ( 3.87 years ). That doesn't seem like that much of a value over florescent. We shall see.
Sorry this is so long -but it really is a great light.
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