Zoo med LED

Anyone know much about the zoo med aquasun LED ho?

The 18" has 8 x 1 watt white led 6000k and 4 500mW blue(465nm)

I know most have the very high end lighting systems because a lot of ppl have sps but for those wanting to keep softies and easier lps would the zoo med be a decent light?

 

Absolutely garbage. For the money buy a amazon black box if you want to go led with quality and value.

 

Oh

 

High power, high value here

 

What do you mean by your post?

I'm not into belittling products nor accusing anyone of that. The light may not be great for all needs but it may be good for some like FOWLR or softy tanks.

Maybe someone on a budget or not wanting something too complicated.

I know that if a reefer wants to keep sps you definitely would not recommend these lights, I would recommend high end LED of 3 watts, MH, or t5ho's.

Often high end, high budget items are discussed on the boards. Its great to discuss these items but offering insight to other products would be helpful as well, to many.

 

One of the most valuable lessons I have learned in this hobby is to plan ahead and make an informed decision. You may not be thinking of light demanding SPS but a lot of corals including soft corals like a lot of light.

With the fixture i posted it is a bit more than what i found the zoomed one but it is a fixture you would be a lot happier with a lot longer. If you buy the zoomed fixture your corals MAY suffer and you probably wouldn't be as pleased with the overall look of the tank under such low light. Even the fish look more brilliant under higher lighting. My 2ȼ

 

A LFS in my area sold those garbage zoomed fixtures at a higher cost than a value full spectrum fixture from amazon. Always think outside the box piano, your taste for coral will change over time. When I first started I loved leathers but you couldn't give them to me at this point. I'm not bashing anyone or there products, I'm simply giving my opinion since I've seen them in action and watched a store owner remove them from his store in less than a years time from there lack of performance. I'm sorry but you asked for advice about a product then I give you an opinion in hopes of saving your money and that's a bad thing? Just trying to help.

 

Even with the LPS and softies, they will benefit from the better quality "black boxes" that mdb posted earlier. Those are IMO, the bottom of the barrel lights that any reefer with any sort of corals has would be expected to carry. I don't mean that in a bad way, I've seen plenty of nice tanks with these lights. It does give you the option when/if you find that one coral that may sway you over... Maybe not.

The biggest thing behind all that, I ran one of the similar leds (zoo led) on FOWL and they just weren't that bright and the spread was poor. I think with the black boxes, you're going to have a brighter tank, overall.

That's just me, would the zoo med leds work for you? yes. There are some that think (myself included) that the money spent on black boxes in your situation has stronger merit to this hobby. I didn't think I'd be doing half the stuff in this hobby as I'm doing 3 years later.

Hope this helps...

 

Thank you. Its all been very helpful.

I wasn't angry at anyones advice, I just wanted to clarify that we aren't all after the same goals and sometimes some have to veer from the commonly used items.

What I should have asked instead was what are these lights compared to pc compacts or t5's?

Unfortunately the item was purchased ahead of time and can't be returned. I had knowledge of metal halides, t5ho, t5's, pc compacts, I knew nothing about LED but my hubby liked it and thought it was good for softies.

In the future I may upgrade, possibly add some led's with a diy, but I am out of work right now so any big expenses must wait.

Purchasing lights in cda has limited choices, can get really expensive, and getting lighting across the boarder can be dicey.

 

You might want to look at adding 2 T5's for supplemental lighting, should look nice having shimmer and T5. T5-HO is definitely superior to PC and I've seen amazing tanks with T5 lighting. Ofcourse quality comes into play with those as well.