wdebenedettojr
Well-Known Member
So I finally upgraded from my no name brand leds. I will say the no name brand (Chinese knock off) LEDs worked surprisingly well and I got good growth with my sps and lps. Gonna start off saying I would like to consider myself pretty good with any kind of technology but i have 6 right thumbs and not very handy lol. I have a standard size 90 gallon tank (48"x18"x24"). I purchased a Hyperion S 2 x 145 watt led panel with no white LEDs from Archit @ Love the Reef (also got the basic hanging kit that comes with it). I picked it up last wednesday so I have been running it for a week now and my corals seem to be adjusting well.
So the light was packaged very well and the USA distributor, Yorgos with Imagine an Ocean (based out of Beverly, MA), double checked the boxes when they arrived at his place to ensure that all the equipment was there and in working order which is always appreciated! I was expecting the light to have some weight to it considering it is about 40 inches long but it is light considering the size. I opted for the black color vs the white and I think it looks very sharp and sleek. The hanging kit is pretty simple, sleek, and modern looking. However for someone like me that is not very handy having and instruction booklet would be nice. The small plastic packaging it came in does have a picture on the front of it but isn't that detailed. I spent about 20 minutes going crazy because I couldn't figure out to to attach the hanging kit to the actual light before I realized there is a screw that had to be unscrewed to attach to the light. lol, I bet the majority of people let alone people that are handy could have figured it out right away it just wasn't clicking with me right away, can't really blame that one on Pacific Sun user error on my behalf lol. Once I figured out how to attach the kit to the light it was very simple to mount which I was proud of myself for doing. They give you a ton of wire to hang the light from whatever height which is nice.
So now to the good part.....actually playing with the light!!! The light comes with 2 power packs that connect to the actual fixture with a 5 prong connector. This is probably why the fixture is so light because the power packs do have some weight to them. On the back of the fixture there is a switch that has 3 positions that are off, fixture on but screen off, and everything on. There is also a button on the back of the fixture that you can press and hold which will put the light in "manual mode." Once you plug the light in the light must be put into a default state at the factory so that comes on right away.
Programming
This is the only part of the light that I don't 100% enjoy. The fixture comes with a start up disk. I should start with saying the fixture is controlled via bluetooth and has only an Android app right now. I assume the disk is the program for the computer to control the fixture but I wouldn't know because the disk only works on Windows machines and I have a Mac. Since I have an iPhone I can't download an app to control the fixture either which is a little disappointing. On pacific sun's website you can download the "driver" for the windows machines also. Fortunately, Pacific Sun is working on a program for Macs, OSX, right now so they do have a beta download that does allow you to connect to the fixture from that. So I downloaded the beta and I was having some issues with getting the fixture to pair with my computer. Long story short the fixture has a 4 digit code (1234) that you have to use to pair it. Im not sure if that disk explains that or if there is paperwork inside the light that says it but I could not find it in the packaging, I had to find that on pacific suns website which was a little aggravating but quick fix nonetheless. Once I had the fixture paired with my computer I went into the beta program and began adjusting the light. I was having a hard time adjusting the colors of each LED via the computer. I am not sure if this was because it was technically only a beta programming or if the light itself wasn't reading my adjustments. Since I was getting frustrated with that part I pulled out my girlfriends old windows laptop to see if I could install whatever was on the disk onto her computer to use a full program vs the beta. Long story short the disk wouldn't download onto my GF's computer, however I am 99.9% sure that is because her computer was old and sucks so not the fault of pacific sun. I went back to my Mac at this time. Before I continued I rebooted my machine to see if that helped. After the reboot I opened the program and connected seamlessly to the fixture. I began adjusting the colors to my liking which is really cool since I am use to just the plain white/blue leds with no controllability. I settled on a more 20k look, almost like a turquoise color which makes my corals look awesome!!!! The moonlights on this fixture are super powerful and look amazing. I originally had them at 15% but I realized that was too bright for moonlights so I dropped it to 2% which is much much better. I started the intensity at 30% at Achits recommendation as to not burn my corals with the adjustment. Since this fixture does not have white leds, the tank looks darker then most are use too but you can definitely tell the intensity is powerful its very deceiving. Even at 30% the tank gave an awesome shimmering look just like halides do which look just awesome. I expected my corals to stay closed up for a few days getting use to the new lights but the next day the corals were all fully open and looked extremely happy. I have since adjusted the intensity up to 50% and I plan on getting up to about 75% total slowly. I have a 90 minute ramp up (sun rise)/ ramp down (sun down) time frame which is very cool; my old fixture wasn't controllable like that so its new to me. The day after I installed the fixture and initially set the settings I wanted to change the ramp times so I connected my mac to the fixture seamlessly. Again, I am not sure of this because I am using the beta mac program, but when I paired the lights the second day I expected the program to display the settings I had set but it didn't, it was all at default. I bet with the windows version, which archit did recommend to me to initially use a window machine and he assured me it is much easier to control on an android phone or windows machine, of the program it will display this. So thinking my fixture didn't retain my programs I set I redid everything. After I redid everything I was in the time frame of being in the middle of my ramp up time frame so I expected the light to be in the ramp up mode but it didn't, it went full blast. I reset the fixture and reset the program again to see if that fixed the programming issue but it didn't so I was stumped on this part. I had to go to work so I left for the day and came home at night. I made it a point to watch the ramp down program when I got home to see if the fixture held what I set it to do which it did slowly ramp down, next morning it ramped up no problem. I assume that because I tried adjusting the fixture during a ramp up program that it doesn't calculate where it needs to begin in the middle of the ramp up after the settings were changed.
Colors of the corals are just unreal with this fixture. Makes everything just pop like crazy. Corals seem to love it, ever since I installed the fixture all my acans always have their feeding tentacles out and are super puffy. I assume its because of just the lights because I didn't change anything else or feed any different food. My SPS seem to have colored up a little bit ever since the fixture change also. The controllability of these lights are amazing, you can adjust the color pretty much to anyones liking. You can definitely tell the difference between a no name brand led fixture that I had to this fixture, its not even a comparison; these fixtures blow them out of the water. Like I said before I am only at 55% intensity right now and it lights up the tank perfectly. I turned the intensity up to 100% just to see what the tank will look like and damn, it was very very bright and gave an unbelievable shimmering effect. I have my light customized to a turquoise-ish color and it looks just like what you would see off a reef in all those cool national geographic magazines.
So the light was packaged very well and the USA distributor, Yorgos with Imagine an Ocean (based out of Beverly, MA), double checked the boxes when they arrived at his place to ensure that all the equipment was there and in working order which is always appreciated! I was expecting the light to have some weight to it considering it is about 40 inches long but it is light considering the size. I opted for the black color vs the white and I think it looks very sharp and sleek. The hanging kit is pretty simple, sleek, and modern looking. However for someone like me that is not very handy having and instruction booklet would be nice. The small plastic packaging it came in does have a picture on the front of it but isn't that detailed. I spent about 20 minutes going crazy because I couldn't figure out to to attach the hanging kit to the actual light before I realized there is a screw that had to be unscrewed to attach to the light. lol, I bet the majority of people let alone people that are handy could have figured it out right away it just wasn't clicking with me right away, can't really blame that one on Pacific Sun user error on my behalf lol. Once I figured out how to attach the kit to the light it was very simple to mount which I was proud of myself for doing. They give you a ton of wire to hang the light from whatever height which is nice.
So now to the good part.....actually playing with the light!!! The light comes with 2 power packs that connect to the actual fixture with a 5 prong connector. This is probably why the fixture is so light because the power packs do have some weight to them. On the back of the fixture there is a switch that has 3 positions that are off, fixture on but screen off, and everything on. There is also a button on the back of the fixture that you can press and hold which will put the light in "manual mode." Once you plug the light in the light must be put into a default state at the factory so that comes on right away.
Programming
This is the only part of the light that I don't 100% enjoy. The fixture comes with a start up disk. I should start with saying the fixture is controlled via bluetooth and has only an Android app right now. I assume the disk is the program for the computer to control the fixture but I wouldn't know because the disk only works on Windows machines and I have a Mac. Since I have an iPhone I can't download an app to control the fixture either which is a little disappointing. On pacific sun's website you can download the "driver" for the windows machines also. Fortunately, Pacific Sun is working on a program for Macs, OSX, right now so they do have a beta download that does allow you to connect to the fixture from that. So I downloaded the beta and I was having some issues with getting the fixture to pair with my computer. Long story short the fixture has a 4 digit code (1234) that you have to use to pair it. Im not sure if that disk explains that or if there is paperwork inside the light that says it but I could not find it in the packaging, I had to find that on pacific suns website which was a little aggravating but quick fix nonetheless. Once I had the fixture paired with my computer I went into the beta program and began adjusting the light. I was having a hard time adjusting the colors of each LED via the computer. I am not sure if this was because it was technically only a beta programming or if the light itself wasn't reading my adjustments. Since I was getting frustrated with that part I pulled out my girlfriends old windows laptop to see if I could install whatever was on the disk onto her computer to use a full program vs the beta. Long story short the disk wouldn't download onto my GF's computer, however I am 99.9% sure that is because her computer was old and sucks so not the fault of pacific sun. I went back to my Mac at this time. Before I continued I rebooted my machine to see if that helped. After the reboot I opened the program and connected seamlessly to the fixture. I began adjusting the colors to my liking which is really cool since I am use to just the plain white/blue leds with no controllability. I settled on a more 20k look, almost like a turquoise color which makes my corals look awesome!!!! The moonlights on this fixture are super powerful and look amazing. I originally had them at 15% but I realized that was too bright for moonlights so I dropped it to 2% which is much much better. I started the intensity at 30% at Achits recommendation as to not burn my corals with the adjustment. Since this fixture does not have white leds, the tank looks darker then most are use too but you can definitely tell the intensity is powerful its very deceiving. Even at 30% the tank gave an awesome shimmering look just like halides do which look just awesome. I expected my corals to stay closed up for a few days getting use to the new lights but the next day the corals were all fully open and looked extremely happy. I have since adjusted the intensity up to 50% and I plan on getting up to about 75% total slowly. I have a 90 minute ramp up (sun rise)/ ramp down (sun down) time frame which is very cool; my old fixture wasn't controllable like that so its new to me. The day after I installed the fixture and initially set the settings I wanted to change the ramp times so I connected my mac to the fixture seamlessly. Again, I am not sure of this because I am using the beta mac program, but when I paired the lights the second day I expected the program to display the settings I had set but it didn't, it was all at default. I bet with the windows version, which archit did recommend to me to initially use a window machine and he assured me it is much easier to control on an android phone or windows machine, of the program it will display this. So thinking my fixture didn't retain my programs I set I redid everything. After I redid everything I was in the time frame of being in the middle of my ramp up time frame so I expected the light to be in the ramp up mode but it didn't, it went full blast. I reset the fixture and reset the program again to see if that fixed the programming issue but it didn't so I was stumped on this part. I had to go to work so I left for the day and came home at night. I made it a point to watch the ramp down program when I got home to see if the fixture held what I set it to do which it did slowly ramp down, next morning it ramped up no problem. I assume that because I tried adjusting the fixture during a ramp up program that it doesn't calculate where it needs to begin in the middle of the ramp up after the settings were changed.
Colors of the corals are just unreal with this fixture. Makes everything just pop like crazy. Corals seem to love it, ever since I installed the fixture all my acans always have their feeding tentacles out and are super puffy. I assume its because of just the lights because I didn't change anything else or feed any different food. My SPS seem to have colored up a little bit ever since the fixture change also. The controllability of these lights are amazing, you can adjust the color pretty much to anyones liking. You can definitely tell the difference between a no name brand led fixture that I had to this fixture, its not even a comparison; these fixtures blow them out of the water. Like I said before I am only at 55% intensity right now and it lights up the tank perfectly. I turned the intensity up to 100% just to see what the tank will look like and damn, it was very very bright and gave an unbelievable shimmering effect. I have my light customized to a turquoise-ish color and it looks just like what you would see off a reef in all those cool national geographic magazines.
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