There is a lot of information out there on reef tank lighting and there have been many evolutions in lighting technology since most of that information has been written. It can be very frustrating to find unbiased and up to date lighting recommendations. So in this article I will give you the best up to date information (as of May 2018) that I can, all in one place.

One of the most common questions I am asked is: “What is the best light for my reef tank?” That question is very difficult to answer without knowing the answer to a few other questions first. Most importantly, “What are you trying to keep?”,  “How deep is your tank?”, and “What is your budget?”

Since I can’t ask you these questions directly, I will list some of the lights that we use below and describe their benefits and limitations. Starting with the cheapest viable lighting option and going all the way up to the ultimate reef lighting systems.

These lighting options are good for soft corals or mixed reefs that aren’t too demanding of your light spectrum and intensity.

In the past the cheaper LED box lights that came out of china were decent at keeping many corals alive due to their high wattage and intensity, allowing the light to penetrate into deeper water and provide reasonable PAR values at depth. Those lights, however, had many lingering problems. Mainly: the WiFi control was almost unusable, the lenses (or lack of lenses) spread the light too much, the fans were loud and unreliable in a high humidity area (like the top of your aquarium!), and the light spectrum was lacking. These new lights are still very inexpensive and have fixed most of the old problems well enough to recommend them as viable reef lighting now. Just don’t expect any customer service from these pop up companies, which in my opinion is the major drawback of purchasing these lights. But for the price? They are definitely worth the gamble and can keep even some stony corals alive.

These lights will come with many more features than the budget lights, but still won’t break the bank.

We have been using current LED fixtures for a while, and I can say that they have come a long way. The initial generations had their problems with faulty ballasts or controllers, but over the years the components they are using have improved in quality and I am getting much better results from these lights. As always, Current will stand behind their products and honor any warranty claim, so that is a big step up from the budget lights. The new IC series of lights have the ability to control a lot more with the remote. You can now program the lights to come on at any time of day and for any amount of time (This was a frustrating problem on the older models.) They also can be easily programmed to add random daily weather patterns such as clouds passing or thunderstorms. The new IC lights also come with the Loop controller that can control up to 3 of Current’s new eFlux Wave Pumps.  Unfortunately they don’t mention anywhere that in order to connect the pumps to your Loop system you need to buy a Wave Pump Manifold HUB, but when you do get it all set up it is really nice to have your lights and pumps controlled in one place.

These lights are probably on the border between mid level pricing and the Elite lighting systems, coming in at around $400 each, but I couldn’t do an LED lighting write-up without them. The new E-series LEDs from Kessil are great lights and will really make your tank pop. Most people are used to longer strip lighting systems that cover the whole tank, but these lights are just pendants. This means you will need at least 1 to 2 feet of clearance above your aquarium for them to hang in order to get the maximum suggested coverage (24″ for the W model and 18″ for the N model)

Kessil also gives you a few different ways to control these lights which a lot of companies tend to overlook. You can control them manually with the two dials on the light (one for color and the other for intensity.) You can also use a number of different external controllers to control them, including Neptune’s Apex system or Kessil’s Spectral Controller.

If you like the Kessil A360 but won’t be keeping a lot of stony corals, or are planning on more of a softie/mixed reef tank, I would suggest looking at the Kessil A160WE Light. It offers great color and similar coverage to the A360, but you will save a few hundred bucks on lighting.

Keep in mind that with a 24″ max coverage radius you will need to purchase multiple units for larger tanks and the distance between the lights will sometimes create a shadow effect between them if you do not have the lights high enough or if you hang them too far apart. The one caveat I need to mention about hanging lights very high off the tank (any lighting system) is that you will be wasting a lot of light on the front and back walls of the aquarium, and this will create excess algae. You need to find the sweet spot that will allow you to get good side to side coverage without too much direct light on the front glass. This is especially hard in some of the more narrow tanks.

These are the best systems money can buy. While I don’t personally believe they are necessary to sustain reef animals, they have been proven to keep the most demanding corals alive and thriving. If you go with these lights I know you will be happy with your purchase, but be prepared to spend big bucks.

The new 4th generation of Ecotech Marine’s Radion light fixtures is out now and it offers some nice improvements over the third generation. The lens configuration is a bit different, providing more even lighting, and the maximum output has increased from 170w to a whopping 190w for the XR30W. These lights are controllable from your Neptune Apex system, or from EcoSmart Live (Ecotech’s proprietary lighting control program.) One of my favorite features of these radion’s is the community that has sprouted up to share lighting schedules. There are a lot of websites where people share pictures of their reef tank and the light settings and schedule that they are using. You can actually download those schedules and import them directly into your Radion lights with the EcoSmart Live program. You will need a laptop and a micro USB cable to set the lights with EcoSmart, or you can purchase the EcoTech ReefLink WiFi Controller so you can control and set the lights remotely.

I don’t have anything negative to say about these lights other than the price and that some of the older generations had some issues with bugs. I have only ran into a few buggy fixtures, and Ecotech was usually very good at troubleshooting the issues with me over the phone.

The Kessil AP700 is brand new this year, and is Kessil’s first foray into panel fixtures (wider, non pendant.) If their older lighting generations is any indication, this light will quickly become the must have light for those reefers who only want the best equipment on their system. I don’t have enough time with these lights yet to give a great review on them, but given Kessil’s attention to detail and my initial impressions, they look like they are worth every penny. They come pre-packed with WiFi capability for remote control, which gives them a leg up on the A360 pendants and the Ecotech Radions since you would need to buy external equipment for those lights to connect them to WiFi