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Coralife Moonlight, Review

bwilly

By bwilly,
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bwilly Newbie

bwilly

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Coralife Moonlight

By Bwilly

Rating : 4 out of 5 stars

I managed to get my hands on this 1watt Coralife Moonlight.

It was advertised in many oversea fish magazines, and I was drooling when I ripped the package.

Its basically pretty plug and play.

The light is not rated for local use and a AC-AC adapter is needed. Reef Deport who delivers the set to my house was kind enough to buy one (Newstar) for me at $14.50.

So for those unsavy in electrical stuffs it will set you back by $14.50 add $48, total of $62.50.

Fixing it up (3/5) - There are two component parts. You can screw it to fix on a metal fixture that has a appropriate size sliding slot, allowing mounting on some light house. Not all lights housing can use this method.

Alternatively mount on the round base with stick on rubber and place it hopefully somewhere stable. I chosen this method. The screwing to the mounting is quite difficult and I have difficulty in screwing the whole thing securely. Using the AC-AC adapter, plugging to the power socket becomes cumbersome.

For those who have multiple huge plugs will have to be careful. The length of the wiring is short in my opinion. I cannot reach my center bracing to place it. I have side bracing all round in my tank. The rounded mounting is also too big to be place properly on my side bracing. There are three rubber mounting evenly spread, and only at any time, two can stick on my bracing. The other dangling rubber mounting makes the moonlight pretty unstable and prone to falling into the tank any time.

I used a spare glass panel and placed it across the left side of my tank. Then I fixed the moonlight base securely on it. Due to the unstable screwing from base to mounting, the moonlight is slightly difficult to aim at the area you wanted. The whole process from ripping the packaging to installing then follow by placement took me 1hours+.

Functionality - I have a DIY moonlight from a reefer which I use for comparison with this Coralife Moonlight. This 1watt moonlight is used on my 4feet tank, which is place about 15cm above water level. It illuminate half of my tank if place diagonally. The penetration of the depth is good, reaching up to my 2ft depth tank. The light is more bright compare to the normal LED ones I have. For 4ft tank I believe using a 1watt Coralife and 3/4 Coralife tank if place properly will allows u to illuminate the whole tank.

The effect of the moonlight is astonishing that is if you like to view your corals at night. Photosynthetic corals will open and glow. I have my bubbles, hammers, yumas and zoos opening nicely. My DIY moonlight I got has 8 LEDs which when combined, is barely as bright as this Coralife moonlight. I was quite impressed especially its running on 1watt.

Value - Its a good value for money comparing to doing/getting a DIY. The only con is that's no warranty and no replacement bulbs. I do recommend it to any reefers who love to view their tank anytime of the day. I am currently running it from 12 midnight when my main lights are off till 6:30am in the morning.

Functionaility (5/5) - Does what it is built to do.

User friendly (3/5) - wiring too short, screw threading not well done.

Value (4/5) - Low power consumption but lack of replacement bulb and warranty.

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bwilly Newbie

bwilly

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yeah..I know but no digi camera this week.

Bro in law took to HK, getting it back tomorrow. :)

will post pic when I got it.

As for the life of the bulb, it was indicated normal usage

will last u 5years, assuming 6-8hours a night. :)

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bwilly Newbie

bwilly

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sorry guys..

just got time to take the light at 12:45am... :(

here goes..

left side of the tank is lighted by the coralife, while as right side is the DIY.

looking closely from the pic can see that the coralife seem to gives a better spread of light across, whereas the DIY one concentrate on target area.

post-14-1090169601.jpg

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bwilly Newbie

bwilly

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2nd pic.

concentrate abit on left side of the tank.

(can't really see when all the living room light is off.., camera LCD shows nothing much..) :(

look at the sandbed for the brightness, compare with the below DIY.

post-14-1090169762.jpg

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bwilly Newbie

bwilly

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DIY mounted on my side bracing with blutack to support it.

The clip on that was provided used a pretty low quality kind of double side taping.

I was quite cautious though. U won't b surprise if hanging it on the tank,

it drop.

What I like about this from a reefer who made for me is the long wiring..

but still not as long as I likes.. :lol:

post-14-1090170288.jpg

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bwilly Newbie

bwilly

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the plug on with timer..

12mn to 6:30am. B)

Goes thru the drilled hole in my cabinet, over to my tank.

Reefer can get a plug extension if the short wire is a concern.

Get a good one (extension) at that, don't save and regretted later.

Wiring is a good 2metre at least, I need to measure it, but definitely not

longer than 3. :(

post-14-1090170498.jpg

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Eric Newbie

Eric

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thanks bro for the pics..

can really see the differences between the diy 1....hmm..nice.

Forget abt DIYing, I'm ordering 1 x 1W corallite today..........btw, wats the dimension of the 1W corallite? Scare too tall for my hood to close.

Eric

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