by AquaNerd | Oct 28, 2013 | Equipment, Industry
Here’s a product we spotted at MACNA back in September that we totally overlooked in our coverage. It’s the Reef Spectrum P47, and instead of wrapping a bunch of LEDs in a plastic housing molded around a gaudy heatsink, ReefLEDLights chose instead to put their chassis under a stylish carbon fiber shell. The fixture comes packed with 47 Cree LEDs, two of which are meant to be a moonlight, and a controller that adjust the intensity of the white, blue, and moonlight channels independently. In addition to the manual controls, this well rounded fixture can also be controlled via Neptune Apex and Reef Angel aquarium controllers. The Reef Spectrum P47 isn’t a small or lightweight fixture. It has a footprint of 18 1/4″ x 9 1/2″, and although the product description didn’t mention weight and we didn’t have a scale with us a MACNA, we assume it tips the scales at probably 25 pounds or more. This is an assumption, and we wouldn’t be surprised if it weighed more than that. Refocusing on the business end of the fixture, Carclo optics are offered in a couple of different varieties to direct the light downward, into the aquarium. Aquarists can choose between Ripple Wide Optics for greater depth penetration or Wide Angle Reflectors for those shallower tanks. by AquaNerd | Sep 27, 2013 | Equipment, MACNA, Technology
When it comes to good looking and well designed aquarium lighting products, there are few out there that rival the Giesemann Teszla LED fixtures. Besides their stunning design, the lights are also loaded to the brim with features, and it looks like they’ll be getting a key accessory to make their use so much easier. Announced at MACNA, Giesemann is releasing a Bluetooth interface, simply called the BT-Interface, that allows users to control up to four Teszla or Teszla-XT LED fixtures with their PC, Mac, smartphone or tablet. With the software interface, aquarists can fully adjust all three color channels using the multi-point time and intensity plot system, create elaborate storm and cloud simulations, and enact a 28-day real-time lunar cycle. The BT-Interface does require a physical connection to each of the fixtures that it controls. This is done through any of one of four on-board USB sockets and their associated cables, but once connected, the lights can be controlled via Bluetooth connection with any capable device. The LEDs in the Teszla lights are controlled by microprocessors, which receive their operating instructions from the interface system. The BT-Interface has a European price tag of € 199.00, and we haven’t seen an official price for the US Market. The software, on the other hand, is available free of charge. Giesemann’s use of Bluetooth instead of WiFi has both its ups and downs by AquaNerd | Sep 26, 2013 | Equipment, Industry, MACNA
Back in May, the American arm of the Italian aquarium product company, Sicce, announced a new reef feeding program. The lineup consists of just two products, called Sicce HyperKoral and Sicce Calanus, but they promised to be a complete dosing system to meet all of your corals’ needs. When dosed hand in hand with each other, they target LPS, SPS, soft corals, and other filter feeders. While at MACNA, we got to see these two coral foods in the flesh, while also getting a full rundown of what they bring to the proverbial dinner table. Below is a summation of what each product accomplishes. HyperKoral is a product that delivers purified L-amino acids, vitamins, and carbohydrates to your corals in a liquid substrate. These components are said to be in concentrations that mimic what is found on wild coral reefs, and because of their chemical makeup, they are not removed via protein skimming by AquaNerd | Sep 25, 2013 | Equipment, Industry, MACNA
AquaticLife had a great showing at MACNA this year, and we managed to get some serious one on one time with a brand new, yet to be released product called the Halo. This LED pendant is still in the prototype phase, but it’s already fully functional and shows great promise. The fixture sports a single multi-chip LED that is loaded with three different controllable color channels. These are broken down into your typical blue, UV, and white emitters. Each channel is manually controllable via dials on the top of the pendant, and users can set up custom lighting schedules with the on-board timer. All in all, the Halo consumes somewhere around 90 watts total, with the LEDs chewing up about 75. While there is no release date or price that has been settled upon, we were told that AquaticLife is toying around with the idea of offering two different models by AquaNerd | Sep 24, 2013 | Equipment, Industry
When it comes to new protein skimmers, we can appreciate it when companies stick to the tried and true, but we get even more excited when a someone does something a bit bold in order to stand out. Aqua Medic did just that with their aCone line of skimmers, which we got the privilege of getting up close to at MACNA. The cone shape isn’t anything new, but the bubble plate and skimmer pump are quite unique. On top of that, the designers incorporated one very hand drain that should help when it comes cleaning time. The bubble plate is one of the most unusual features of the aCone. It ditches the usual horizontal plate with upward facing holes in favor of a stack of plates that create horizontally opposed bubble channels, which really slow the flow of water and bubbles through the skimmer body. This increases dwell time, and therefore the amount of time the bubbles are in contact with the water. The second big selling point of the aCone is the skimmer pump volute, which isn’t completely unique in its design, but definitely out of the norm. ATI Aquaristik first introduced this sort of design, where water is drawn from the outer edge of the volute with air being injected directly in the middle. Other protein skimmers do this the other way around, drawing in air around the periphery of the volute.
