• 120w 14k Evolution LED Lighting Review by: matt_longview

    I've had the 120w 14k Evolution LED for just over three months now and I have enjoyed it. There are a few things I would love to be different, but in my opinion for the price of this unit you can't go wrong.

    The fixture itself is attractive. 119 1 watt LEDs (60 blue, 59 white) are arranged well so that there is nice even coverage across your tank. No "stripes" or "spotlights" of different color lighting. Although early reviews suggested that the fans were very loud, this issue seems to have been resolved before my model was produced. The fans keep the unit cool and are nearly silent. The outside of the fixture is powder coated black and looks modern and attractive hanging above the tank.


    The coverage on the sellers website suggests that this fixture can cover a 36 inch wide area, and while I agree that at 18 inches or deeper you will get that wide of coverage do understand that the fixture itself is not very wide. At the edges of that coverage light will only be coming from the direction of the fixture, which will cause corals to prefer to grow in that direction and possibly have different coloring on the side furthest from the light. I would suggest you consider the coverage on this fixture no wider than 30 inches. With two fixtures I believe you would easily be able to cover a 60 inch (5 foot) tank. Three fixtures could cover as wide as an 8 foot tank. All of those numbers are based upon my choice to hang the fixture 5 inches above my water line where I am currently growing SPS 8 inches below the water surface. If you're not interested in SPS, you can hang this fixture much higher and get more coverage. NOTE: I'm sure you could easily grow SPS at the top of a tank with these fixtures hung 8 inches off the water. I chose 5 because of my smaller area, and to get more PAR down to my corals.

    Pic Note: This image is from before I added SPS to my tank. You'll see SPS pics later. This image does a good job of displaying the coverage of the light, which is why it was chosen.

    The PAR from this fixture is great. It has grown corals in my tank well, and I'll display some growth shots below. I do not have access to a PAR meter, but even if I did I doubt I would do a large write up on it because one has already been done very well for this unit. Here is the link: http://nationalcoralregistry.com/for...n-LED-Lighting

    Growth shots: Make sure you pay attention to dates. All of them were not added at the same time and pictures were taken on different days. My stocking was just completed within the last week, so from this point forward I'll be able to take exact growth shots with exact start and end dates of all my corals together. While I was stocking, this was impossible. :-)
    January 26th
    March 18th
    April 10th

    January 20th
    April 1st

    January 20th
    March 4th
    April 10th

    I ordered my Evolution LED unit from www.thecoralshop.com. I've also ordered many corals from there and they do a great job. Free shipping on the lights also. :-)
    This article was originally published in blog: 120w 14k Evolution LED Review started by matt_longview
    Comments 10 Comments
    1. Jessy's Avatar
      Jessy -
      Thanks for taking the time for a great review! It's been upgraded to our article section on Product Reviews for east access.
    1. reefkoi's Avatar
      reefkoi -
      nice! that rimless tank looks great!
    1. matt_longview's Avatar
      matt_longview -
      Thanks for the front page Jessy.

      And reefkoi, thanks for the compliment. Don't tell anyone... but it's just one of the regular 29 gallon tanks that you pick up at Petco. Messaged the manufacturer and they said if the black plastic on top did not have any braces across the top they did not offer any more structure to the tank and were purely cosmetic (removing it does void the warranty though). So... I took a saws-all to it! :-) Literally. NOTE: I ran it through the gauntlet after removing it to ensure that it would hold up well. It ran for 6 weeks and I did all kinds of measuring, looking for bows, looking for cracks, leaks or water of any kind before putting anything in it.
    1. Pool Man's Avatar
      Pool Man -
      Well done Matt. Thanks for including the links.
    1. matt_longview's Avatar
      matt_longview -
      Thanks Pool Man! :-)
    1. eel-byte's Avatar
      eel-byte -
      So are you saying I could use two of these over my standard 120g (4x2x2) and still be able to keep sps?
    1. matt_longview's Avatar
      matt_longview -
      That's my exact future plan. 2 of these fixtures over that exact dimension 120g. They will easily cover and be able to keep high light SPS in approx the top 15 inches of the tank. I may even go deeper because these things are burning acans I'm putting in my current tank at 18" (23" below fixture... which is hung 5" above water) and I don't think another 6" of depth will lower the light intensity enough.
    1. eel-byte's Avatar
      eel-byte -
      So what are the long-term effects of leds on corals? I've herd the corals start losing their colors, bleaching out?
    1. matt_longview's Avatar
      matt_longview -
      You can see from my pictures above that my corals look healthier now than in the first few days I received them. A lot of people bleach corals with leds because they put out more par and they don't acclimate the corals to the high lighting. This fixture puts par out that's similar to a 250w MH. Three of my friends now have this unit, all of us have great growth and color.
    1. Shawnanthony's Avatar
      Shawnanthony -
      Looks good... Makes me want to buy LED Lights for my tank