Mars Aqua 165watt unit - I like the color

[blasterman]

Long story short, I don't have time to build my own LED rigs, and I can't get the LEDs I want anyways which is more frustrating (if you have access to some 455-460 RB Luxeon S-3000's then we need to talk). So, I got a Mars Aqua for $100 on Amazon to tinker with. The plan being, if I liked it, I'd get another and have all the coverage I need on my new Mr Aqua 12gal.

Now I see why these things are so popular, and the unit I have looks *nothing* like online reviews in terms of color. YouTube reviews tend to show a purple/pink cast, and the unit I have is just not capable of this. It may be the the 'whitest' and most neutral commercial LED light I've yet seen in person.

The key difference with the Aqua -vs- most other lights is it generously uses 460nm LEDs as opposed to ~450nm royals, although it has a few of those as well. Using the 460nm base LEDs produces a much different aethestic than common royals. Gone is the deep violet glow and glowing actinic greens and instead you get more of a crisp, halide'ish blue base with more of an 'electric'' look to actinic colors. Our eyes being more sensitive to 460 -vs- 450 this is to be expected. The Mars unit has a distinct halide flavor to it thanks to those 460's coupled with a white channel on the warm side.

Another difference when using 460's -vs- typical royals is when you balance out a light to look really 'white' with royals you lose a lot of actinic pop and things really dull down. With 460's though you can balance out to be a very neutral white, but oranges and reds and actinic greens still have significant 'fire' to them and stand out. As an example I have a healthy colony of about 20 Darth Mauls and Sunny D's, and even after balacing the light out to be perceptual white these palys continue to stand out vividly along with the metallic blue sparkle of my purple digi colonies. That's cool.

SPS is really the biggest beneficiary of longer wavelength blue though. The older AI Sol units with 470's really shined under SPS, but lacked the warmth to balance the unit out. The Mars unit fixes those problems.

The white channel or 'warmth' channel is kind of goofy and could be simplified, but it is what it is. Rather than a couple of discrete orange-red and green LEDs we could just use warmish neutral for the entirety of the white channel and call it a day. However, that wouldn't look as cool a having discrete colors because, you know, higher end LED units all use discrete colors. It's marketing, we know it, but it doesn't create any problems. I've seen some disco issues with units on youTube, but only under higher mounting distance. Mine is 20" above my tank bottom, and there's no perceptual disco.

Another issue is there's no way you'd ever use the white channel cranked up all the way unless using over fresh water / 'black water' tanks, or growing, er, other things. It's waaaaay too yellow to have any reef benefits cranked up 100%, so you lose grunt horsepower if you are using them on bigger tanks and have the blue channel cranked 100%. Ideally you'd add some 450s and 460's to the white channel to get more bang per buck. Bonus if you could get a couple 470's in there.

I'm not thrilled about the mounting options because the units are fugly when used with the hanging kits, but there's room for creativity. Rather than the hanging wires and hooks I just used a long length of heavy duty string run through the eye bolts and hung the unit 'cat's cradle' style, which was far simplier and easy to adjust and tweak and aim the unit. Ultimately I'm just going to build a horizontal frame the width of the units and place them on that. I just wish the stupid PSU sockets came out the side -vs- out the top. Again, minor nit. The fans are silent, and the exhaust air is barely warm.

All things considered, a lot of light for the money. If you like a deep, 20k glowing violet tinged classic LED royal inspired look to your tank the Mars unit is not your thing. If you like a brighter, more 'whitish' look to your tank while still popping a lot of actinic detail it's right on the money and rather unique in that dept.

[R_MC]

Nice review - I'm glad to see more folks out there thinking with their wallet. The new fancy lights are great, but I can almost guarantee that they do not grow coral much better than - and in some cases as well as - a Mars Aqua.

[blasterman]

The American lights running Crees are more efficient, but not brighter. They are also absurdly expensive for the par and cutting their own throat.

 

The Mars unit has a distinct color, and that gives it a distinction other than being cheaper.