- Today on BRS TV Investigates,
Can fixed spectrum LEDs like these
Reef Brite Lumi Lite LED Strips
beat the spread spectrum and PAR needs
for your LPS and SPS dominated systems
on their own?
If your on a budget and looking
for one of the easiest to implement
lighting options we've ever tested,
you need to see what's coming up next.
(introduction music)
Hi I'm Randy with this Friday's
BRS TV Investigates.
We experiment on our tanks so you
don't have to experiment on yours,
and today, we find out if
a handful of Reef Brite Lumi Lite LED strips
can meet our goals for LPS and SPS
dominated tanks, for spread spectrum and PAR,
and change the way you think
about LED strip lighting forever.
Open and honest since the Reef Brite strips
first appeared in the hobby,
I'd only consider them to serve for one purpose:
a super easy way to supplement
my T5 fixture for a little extra
coral pop or accented florescence
and to bring in some LED shimmer to the tank
that lacks when I use just T5s alone.
That was until recently when we started
testing the Reef Brite Lumi Lite,
Lumi Lite Pro, and XHO options on their own
as a primary display tank light
and I have to tell you, I was completely wrong.
So to give each Reef Brite LED strip model
its proper due and to help you better decide
which tool might be the right job for your tank,
today we are testing the most budget
friendly of the three options
with the Lumi Lite Actinic Blue
and Lumi Lite 50/50.
How budget friendly are they?
Well, as you are about to see,
at just under $400 bucks for five strips
without the need for additional mounting hardware
or control equipment because they are both
included, other than a timer to help you
turn them on and off, the Reef Brite Lumi Lite
provides a very impressive performance
not just for lower light demand tanks
like LPS and softies, but even for those more
advanced to light SPS dominated tanks as well.
So, lets find just how they get the job done
starting with our test for how the Lumi Lite
masters the light spread and distribution.
To determine a light's spread performance,
we typically look at three aspects:
how many we believe are needed
to adequately cover a tank, how high they should
be mounted for a balance between
the most coverage possible with the littlest
amount of light efficiency lost,
and, if necessary, how to space multiple units
to optimize the most intersecting light point
for multiple modules and spread
the light out as evenly as possible.
Within those parameters for determining spread,
because the Reef Brite Lumi Lites come in sizes
that span the most popular tank length dimensions
from 12 to 72 inches, the question
of how many you need and how to space
them properly comes down to a consideration of
just the front and back width of the tank
instead of the length and to make this one easy,
we found that five Lumi Lite strips
spaced evenly from to back in four-inch
increments met our needs for a 24 by 24 inch
testing area and there's two main reasons why.
First, as you'll see in just a moment
when we dive into spectrum, we found
that a three to two ratio of Actinic Blue
to 50-50 strips met our needs for our desired
spectrum both for corals and for our eyes,
and, secondly, because they included
mounting legs suspend the Lumi Lites
at just two inches above the water,
we needed five strips to properly cover
the entire 24 inch area at such a low
mounting height. Which leads us into that third
aspect of today's spread testing.
As I mentioned right in the beginning
of today's video, I believe that the Lumi Lite
is one of the easiest to implement lighting
options that we've tested so far
and much of that's to do with the performance
that you're about to see for mounting height.
And what we were able to achieve using
the included mounting legs at just two inches
off the top of the water, due to the included
mounting legs being one of the only
mounting options available for the standard
Reef Brite Lumi Lights, we conducted
our mounting height test as if you took
five strips out of the box, put them right
on the edge of your tank, and
what we found was very unexpected.
With that in mind, I'm certain that
some of you DIY reefers could easily come up
with a mounting solution that allows you
to raise multiple Lumi Lites off the water,
or better yet, at least allow you to remove them
as a single unit, much like we did here
with some aluminum C channel.
However, when we tested the spread
and distribution, six inches deep in our 60
gallon tank, with the five Lumi Lites set
to their max intensity, we were
extremely surprised to see a similar spread
performance in line with the gold standard
eight bulb T5 lighting option, where as you can
see here, both the T5 and the Lumi Lites average
PAR from the center to the outer edges
is nearly identical, except the five Lumi Lites
are accomplishing this type of spread
at just two inches, which is six inches closer
than any option that we've tested yet.
Not only that, but looking at the overall average
PAR here at the top of the tank, there is only
a six PAR difference between the Lumi Lites
and the golden standard eight bulb T5,
but at a lower cost. And in just a moment,
you will be even more astonished to see
how closely they perform in our PAR test
for those jam-packed SPS dominated systems.
Before we jump too far ahead, let's first see
what the spectrum output and target spectrum
ranges for coral health and visual appeal
that the Lumi Lite has to offer. Unlike the
dozen or more LED lighting options that we've
tested over the past few months
which provide a variety of controllable
full spectrum channels, the simplicity of the
Reef Brite strips lies in their three spectrum
color options, Actinic, 50-50, and white.
The Actinic strips have a blue peak
at 446 nanometers, where a bunch of
that coral pop and florescence are derived.
The 50-50 combines those same Actinic LEDs
with what most would consider to be cool white
LEDs, and provide a little bit of
green, yellow, and red for that cool white look.
We also tested the spectrum of the white
Lumi Lite strip, which as you can see here,
has a significant hump in that
green, yellow, and red range, but ultimately,
after mixing and matching multiple combinations
of the three, we decided that the best-looking
combo over the tank was a mix of
three Actinic strips with two 50-50 strips.
We measured the spectrum mix created
by these five Lumi Lites and when we compared
that to the ATI Blue Plus T5 bulb spectrum,
we find that, although it is narrower below
420 and above 470 than what we typically aim for,
which is to fill in as much of that wide
blue spectrum range between 400 and 500
as possible, the Actinic and 50-50 combo
should be adequate enough to not only provide
for coral energy needs but also make them
look pretty awesome in the tank,
which there's no denying it, it does
pretty well as you can see here.
Our dynamic spectrum blending test is next,
where we test the Lumi Lites' performance
at creating one cohesive spectrum blend inside
our sixty gallon tank filled with water.
This is one area where we have seen clear winners
and clear losers among the variety of LEDs,
because it's more difficult to mix
different colors of individual points of light
rather than, say, a T5 bolt that has a large area
of one single spectrum, especially at shorter
mounting heights. Yet, here are the two inch
mounting height of the Reef Brite Lumi strips
are the shortest that we have tested, however,
when we look at the ten spectrum data points
measured underneath our 60 gallon test tank,
there is hardly the slightest fluctuation to any
given point across the Lumi Lite spectrum range,
which I would attribute to the Actinic and 50-50
strips having only two LED colors that need to
be blended together. So even though the spectrum
offering and output of the Reef Brite strips
might leave a little to be desired, so far
I'd say that these five Lumi Lite strips are far
exceeding my expectations, but
our testing is not quite done yet.
The next question is will the Lumi Lites have
enough PAR output to grow tanks full of LPS,
softies, and polyps? Or better yet,
will they have the oomph to hit those
SPS dominated PAR numbers throughout
the entire tank? Our PAR testing data is next.
Now that we have a better understanding of the
Lumi Lites' spread and spectrum performance,
which I have to say, was one of the easiest
testing batteries that we have completed
among all the lights we've tested
on BRS TV Investigates, it's time to put that
information together and come up with settings
recommendations for our two tank type goals:
one for lower light demand tanks and the
other for higher PAR demand jam-packed SPS tanks.
Within those two tank types, we attempt
to achieve target PAR numbers throughout
the top, middle, and bottom of our 60 gallon
test tank, where for LPS, softies, and polyps
we're trying to fill seventy percent or more of
the entire tank in PAR ranges between 75 to 150.
While for SPS dominated systems,
we target that same seventy percent
or more within 200 to 350 PAR.
So with our five Lumi Lites spaced in four-inch
increments from the front to the back of this
24 inch by 24 inch cube and mounted using the
included legs at just two inches off the water,
we toggled through the six different intensity
settings on the included dimmer switches,
until we hit those PAR goals for both tank types.
First, targeting that tank filled
with wavy euphyllia, a canned garden, lobos,
and zoas, or as much of the tank between
75 to 150 PAR as possible, we set each of the five
Lumi Lite strips to fourth intensity setting,
which is roughly 60 percent, and tested 108
data points at 6, 12, and 18 inches in the tank.
What we found was a stellar performance of 90 out of 108
or 83 percent of all points at or within our
LPS goals, which works out to be one of the best
if not the best performance that we've seen in
our 24 inch 24 inch test tank.
And most surprisingly of all, this was done at
just two inches off the top of the tank.
Now we find out if the Lumi Lite set up
can hit those SPS dominated PAR numbers,
between 200 to 350, where we set each strip
to the highest setting of 100 percent and tested
the same 108 PAR points, where we found
81 out of 108 or 75 percent of this entire
60 gallon cube at or within that 200 to 350,
which winds up performing nearly identical
to the eight bulb T5 fixture, yet at half
of the cost when you factor in bulbs included.
I don't know about you, but I can definitely see
why the Reef Brite Strips have caused quite
a stir around the BRS office lately,
especially with performances like today's.
Again, if you are a budget conscious reefer,
who doesn't mind a little extra effort
put into a DIY mounting system to combine all
five strips into one complete fixture and gain
a little more free access into the tank,
then this combo might be right tool for you.
However, there are two other Reef Brite options
that have more finished and sleek looking
mounting options to choose from and actually
perform even better than the Lumi Lites
that we saw today. So if you want to check out
the testing results for the Lumi Lite Pro
or the XHO LED strips, hit this
light testing playlist right over here.