What a surprise! Chihiros does have a LED light for Marine tank! And it does not cost you an arm or leg. It cost me just USD35 from Taobao and shipped in by ezBuy with Prime. ?
We all know that lighting for marine tank is one of the highest cost of setting up a marine tank. Most lightings I saw in LFS are selling for no less than USD100 even for the most basic lighting.
Remember, what I am doing here is to convert one of my planted tank to a marine tank (and eventually into a reef tank) at a minimum budget. Refer to this post for this project – From Planted Tank to Marine Tank.
Chihiros A-Series LED Lighting
A little background information for those of you who are not familiar with the A-series lighting.
Chihiros are big time when it comes to fresh water aquarium. The A-series LED lightings are extremely popular for those starting out on planted tank as it offers the best bang for the money. Ultra bright LED lights that can grow aquatic plants with the least amount of money.
However, their marine version is not very well known. I will give you a full review once I got my tank running.
Same Name Same Box
The light came through the mail today and I almost died, thinking they must have sent the wrong light. This was because upon opening the wrapping case the box showed A-series which looked exactly like the fresh water version. ?
Word-by-word on the box, they were 100% identical to my fresh water A-series.
I was about to pick up the phone and return this thing back to the seller until I looked on the side of the box. And it was the only indicator that this was indeed the marine version of the A-series. ?
For fresh water A-series the side has white background. For the marine version it has blue background. And the marine version has the letter M added to the end of the model number, e.g. A451M.
What a huge relief!
What’s Included
Whatever you get for the fresh water version you will also get for the marine version.
It comes with the dimmer switch, a mini screw driver, acrylic light stand, and some screws in addition to the light itself.
But I don’t think I will be using those flimsy acrylic stand, given the fact that salt water is gonna corrode those light casing in no time.
The first thing I noticed was that there was actually two light switch on this light ?
I am not sure why even the sticker on the light is the same as the fresh water version. What I suspect is that the marine lighting was just an experiment for Chihiros to test the market. As such they were also trying to save cost by re-using whatever they already had on hand.
Extremely Bright
What do you expect from an A-series? Blinding brightness.
81 LEDs giving out 3500 lumens of lights. It almost blinded me as with all A-series that I bought.
The second light switch I discovered was for controlling the white LEDs. So you can have bluish lights or bluish lights with white lights.
Well, until my tank has been set up there is nothing more I could say about the light.
