Experience with Illumagic pixels?

[Swordsman82]

Wondering if anyone out there has any experience with the illumagic pixels? They look good on paper, and am looking to replace my AIs with them.

 

[dz6t]

Yes their claims looks good on paper but some are too good to be true, when a manufacturer gives out BS such as these, in my own opinions, it raises questions.
Lets see their claims:

1. “Burnt lenses hurt PAR massively. Illumagic lenses never burn, lifetime guarantee. Zero par loss due to lenses forever, and that's huge”

Yes, burnt lenses does hurt par, but only led light that has this issue is AI Hydra/prime, only on their 400 nM UV channel when the channel is over driven for several years. The solution is $8 new lense. So this is not a common issue. Par loss can happen to any led chips due to aging, regardless what types of lenses they use.

 

[dz6t]

“2. Excess watts are priced at a diminishing return. Why pay for heat? Illumagic is the coolest (and we don't mean hip) lighting system on the market.”

There is no such thing as excess watts, LED uses energy proportional to their light output for all premium brands. They are not the coolest led on the market in terms of temperature.
May be they are talking about metal halide as the other lighting systems.

 

[dz6t]

“3. Unusable colors that you turn down anyway are all contributing to excess watts that you'll never use. The Illumagic spectrum is perfectly chosen for minimal watts wastage due to unused spectrums”

What is unusable colors? Red and green may be? If that is the case, turn down or turn off the channel and it consumes less or won’t consume energy. By the way, unless they manufacture their own led chips, they are no different than anybody else.

 

[dz6t]

4. “Not all watts are created equal. Be smart, choose the most efficient watts especially in this current economic and energy scarce climate”

That is true, not all watts are created equal, but you can’t get better energy efficiency than any major brands of led who all use the same or similar led chips.
If they want to compare themselves to those eBay led lights, their statement may be true.

 

[dz6t]

5. “You're getting an LED lighting system with under 5% energy loss to heat where the rest of the competition is shortchanging you with over 20% of wasted energy”

This is laughable, the most energy efficient led still loose 50 to 60% of energy to heat. Again, if their competition is metal halide, their statement would be true.
By the way, there were energy efficiency tests done on all major brands of led including horticulture led, they all are very similar.

 

[dz6t]

Illumagic is a good brand of led. They have been around for a long time and they make good led. But they really don’t need to advertise this way. If I buy a new fixture, I will consider them.

 

[Swordsman82]

5. “You're getting an LED lighting system with under 5% energy loss to heat where the rest of the competition is shortchanging you with over 20% of wasted energy”

This is laughable, the most energy efficient led still loose 50 to 60% of energy to heat. Again, if their competition is metal halide, their statement would be true.
By the way, there were energy efficiency tests done on all major brands of led including horticulture led, they all are very similar.

They claim there strip light has 0% energy loss to heat. Its been a minute since my engineering class in college, but i am pretty sure this breaks the thermodynamic laws of the universe.

 

[Swordsman82]

Thanks for the opinion. their marketing gets pretty hyperbolic with what they can do.

I am mainly looking at them cause i want a have a more clean lighting set up with less plugs ( i have a two year old that loves to play on the rats nest of cables behind my tank ). And my tank is slowly becoming a lower light LPS tank, so i don’t need a huge amount of power about it ( currently have 2x AI Primes and a Hydra 32). Last i hate having to mess with light spectrum, i just want to throw a light above the tank and forget about it (T5 is not an option for the way the tank is set up in my house).

 

[dz6t]

I think you can simply remove the Hydra 32.

 

[Swordsman82]

I had just the 2x AI Primes before and there was a lot of shadowing and the stuff in the corners of the tank always seemed to be stretching to the light, as though it wasn't getting enough to them. I have a 36" 50 gallon AIO.

 

[dz6t]

Reefbreeders 32 inch photon Pro will cover your tank edge to edge with one single power cord. Mounting legs are included with the fixture. If you are interested, I carry new Reefbreeders led and I am in Concord MA. I also have a few used led options that will fit your tank. Depending on the age and condition of your AI LED, we can work out a credit or trade etc.
I buy and sell used equipments besides aquaculture coral.
By the way, I am able to order Illumagic led for you but I really don’t think they are the best fit for you.