I found the following review on another forum from a guy who bought one of the HIGH dollar LED fixtures.
SOLARIS I-SERIES FINAL REVIEW Final Review
OK, thought I would write my
final review on Solaris as a user after 3 months + with actual corals and fishes in tank.
Polyps appear within minutes they are in my new tank….all SPS are showing good PE and seem to be doing fine under the new lights. Light setting, I slowly increase the whites from 30% to 80% every 10 to 14 days to let the corals acclimate to the new lightings level as in my previous tank they were under 3 x MH250W - don’t want to burn them….
Night mode and cloudy sky mode are my favourite but so far can’t see any benefits for my fishes nor corals. I think it’s only a concept more than anything else but cool otherwise.
So far, no squeaky fans and light fixture is very silence. You will have to put your ears next to the fixture to hear anything.
Problems Encounter
2 LED stopped working once I increase the intensity above 60%. With the 2 Led not working, this has also caused some of the LED to start blinking, due to uneven power distribution, I was told.
Replacement of the Led strip was easy as it’s a matter of removing 4 screw and replace the blown LED strip with the new strip. PFO send me the replacement strip within 2 weeks
Then another issue is day white (DW) LED refusing to shut off during the night mode!! PFO suspect this is cause by a faulty Transistor board, which accordingly to them they only encounter twice. They have sent me 3 version of Transistor board to exchange but still do not solve the issue.
Comes close to the 3 month usage timeline, one of the 3 power supply also died on me, follow by another power supply two days later …
This leave only 2 section of LED lighted up, out of total 6 section. I open up the Power supply and apparently the condenser has blown so that was obviously a major concern for me as this can cause fire hazard!!
Summary
Overall I still think Led lights are great as it gives you the flexibility to adjust both colors and brightness with a press of a button. No more worries about what type MH bulb or T5 tubes color combo to buy and experience and experience and experience until you get something you like
Not to mention the easy maintenance and the replacements of LED
Defiantly for those who cannot make up their mind on the colors of their lights….me being one of those people !! In the past I have tried so many different combo actins and MH bulbs and still can never get the light color combo I like and with a LED lighting fixture, this is so easy.
Heat is almost non-existent. During the time I was using Solaris, my temperature was consistent at 27.5 degree and now that I have taken down my Solaris and used my old 250w MH with 2 x 54w T5, my temperature went up to 28.2 degree…
Also for those considering using LED, to note that the light shine down like a spot so you don’t have too much lights over throw at your glass panel, which in return causes less algae growths and makes your life of cleaning the glass panel a breeze, especially when you have a Peninsular set-up, like mine.
Only wish is the build quality and QC could be better.
Understand the frustrations some went through to get replacement parts via PFO but I was lucky as their distributor in Singapore just give 1st class service throughout this whole ordeal
