Maxspect Ethereal First look

[disaster999]

So Maxspect had a pretty low key pre-release sale in Hong Kong which I was lucky enough to be informed by some of my local reefing buddies. In the sale they had the Ethereal on display so I asked if its for sale, next thing I know I walked out with 2 of the Ethereal lights and headed straight home. With Maxspect teasing us for 2 years about this new light they are working on, Im excited to tear into it and see what this light is all about.



Anyone who've owned Maxspect product should be familar with their packaging. Its not the fanciest or the nicest, but it gets the job done.


Theres a single blower fan unit on the light that pushes air out on all 4 sides of the fixture keeping it cool. Air the drawn from the top and bottom of the fixture


Here are the 8 LED pucks. They are closely packed together with a whitish/silverish reflector cup which SHOULD cut down on the disco effect. Note the different mounting holes on the fixture for maximum adjustability on different tank sizes.


The mounting hardware and massive power brick is tucked neatly under the fixture.


Check out these beefy arms. I measured them to be 4mm thick. With the fixture as light as it already is, the arms should have absolutely no problem holding the light up. The clamp on the arms can easily accommodate glass thickness of up to 30mm. They are nicely padded with silicone rubber and can be mounted on both rimless or braced tanks with no problem.


Initial thoughts, I didnt have time to mount it on my tank. Only played with it briefly before I had to go

The lights are unique looking and have a very low profile. The mounting bracket its well though out and strong enough to support the light when fully expended. The blower style center fan SHOULD be thermally controlled since they didnt turn on when the lights came on. Ill be keeping an eye on them and see if they do turn on when the light heats up.

The blower fan has a built in RGB light inside that changes color as you turn and press the knobs on the light. Im guessing to let you know which channel you are adjusting. The manual calls it "mood light" so Im guessing it can be programmed as well. There are 8 individual LED pucks with a matted silver reflector on the fixture with 5 LED on each puck bringing it to a total of 130W per fixture.

Color wise, compared to the Lumia 5.2 pucks and mixtures of OCW, RB, neutral whites and violets, the Ethereal made the corals pop more. The florescent are more pronounced and vibrant.

Spread and penetration wise, the LED have their own little cup at which it acts like a lens/reflector, focusing the light down onto the tank. I have no doubts with the fixture penetrating 24-30" tanks, but I was kind of worried about the spread. Lighting one fixture over my tank temporarily put my worry to rest as I was surprised how wide of an area the fixture was able to cover. Im sure the lack of focusing lenses and the use of the reflector cup help spread the light instead of beaming down into the tank.

Overall Im impressed at the the fixture and the overall package. I need to tear down my old lights and install the new ones. Ill be sure to post before and after pictures of my corals to show the difference.

[Aqualund]

What a great fixture! Thanks for posting your experience with it!

[moondoggy4]

Thanks for the review Looking forward to the pictures of the light over your tank.

[mr9iron]

Subscribed.


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[Ron Reefman]

Nice looking fixture.

Curious about just how big a spread it has at 24" deep and what the PAR is under the fixture and out toward the edges.

I assume it does sunrise/sunset? Are the individual colors in the fixture adjustable? If not, is it even blue/white adjustable?

[disaster999]

I dont have a par meter so Im not sure about the spread. I think Maxspect released a video earlier showing the par of their fixture in water.

I forgot to mention I also bought the wireless controller with the light. I can wirelessly control the fixture with my phone and set sunrise/sunset and intensity of the output for each channel. To be honest, the fixture is not meant to be used without the controller. The knob/button on the fixture itself is not very intuitive and I had a hard time setting the light. Good thing the controller was inexpensive enough to not matter. Also I was told future controllable products will utilize the same controller so instead of having multiple standalone controllers, this concept is more modular.

From what I remember from reading articles, there are 5 channels on the fixture
Channel 1: Neutral white
Channel 2: Warm White
Channel 3: Royal Blue
Channel 4: Green/Cool Blue
Channel 5: Violet/UV

All channels can be individually controllable.

Heres a picture of the LED cluster I managed to snap.

[gcarroll]

I saw the Ethreal in the Coralvue booth at RAP Orlando. Not a bad looking fixture and the cooling is pretty trick. I was really impressed with how thin the fixture was. I look forward to seeing more as Maxspect has time and time proven their fixtures produce quality light for the corals.

[disaster999]

Heres the video I was talking about par measurements

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ene93_186SY

[gcarroll]

Originally Posted by disaster999

Heres the video I was talking about par measurements

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ene93_186SY

Not bad and looks to have a pretty even distribution.

[disaster999]

So I had some time this weekend to take some proper shots, show you the app and give a demonstration of the sunrise and sunset. Excuse the condition of my coral. I had an inbalanced Alk/Calc ratio which I am correcting and recently recovered from a massive algae outbreak so my SPS appears to be lackluster and dull.

First off, the light have 5 controllable channels which can be individually controlled through the app.


The shots below shows each channel on 100% and the final picture shows the normal daytime mode Ive set for my tank. The first 5 shots are shot on auto without and color correction or any photoshopping

Channel 1


Channel 2


Channel 3


Channel 4


Channel 5 (oops, my camera might be having trouble focusing with the violet/UV lights)


Any normal daytime mode


Programming is done through a timeline and your set points are display on a graph for better visualization. IMO the programming isnt the easiest thing to use. If you set the entire programming already and want to go back to change the time or add another time slot in between 2 points, you pretty much had to delete everything up that specific point in time and start over. There are no other easy way of editing the program.

[disaster999]

Here are some macro shots of some of my corals that arent too brown









My new prized coral...Jedi Mind Trick. Hopefully I can get it to color up

[disaster999]

Lastly, heres a quick video of the sunrise and sunset of the light. There is a demo mode on the programming page (the center bottom "play" button) which lets you preview the entire 24 hour programming in around 4 mins. Its pretty useful just to double check your programming and see if it is what you want, but it have this weird step and cycle effect which doesnt play the entire sequence smoothly. I cant tell if the actual light does the weird stepping when running its program.

Also, Ive sped up the video by about 2x just so you guys dont need to sit through 2 mins of sunrise/sunset. You can slow down the video on youtube to see the actual speed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A6OnGj01Wc

[sayitfast]

How many of these do you think I would need to cover a tank 62 x 23 x 24 high ?

[dz6t]

Bravo for Maxspect did not follow the red and green LED "trend".
It shows that they really do their research!

[Irieman]

Originally Posted by dz6t

Bravo for Maxspect did not follow the red and green LED "trend".
It shows that they really do their research!

Yeah I noticed also withthe new g4s.


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[dz6t]

Isn't G4 has red and green?

[Justin330]

Are you still running these? Curious to see how well they are working out.

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[ReefCowboy]

Looks promising! I like it

[Justin330]

Right.im waiting to pull the trigger till I hear some more on them

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[dartier]

Same here. I have an AP700 over my frag tank right now, but I am 1 AP700 short for my DT build and I was thinking of ordering 2 Ethereals for the frag tank so that I can re-purpose the AP700 rather than buying another AP700.

I would love to hear feedback from existing owners.

Dennis

[lambchops]

I'm tagging along as I am considering getting these or AI Hydra HD.

Any updates?

[Buzz1329]

I was really interested in lights until viewing CoralVue video giving instructions for connecting lighting system to phone app. For me, connecting using these instructions would be a tad easier than constructing an atom bomb from scratch.

I'm not looking for ramping up and down. I'm interested in selecting day long intensity of each light channel. And then turning the lights on and off, even if I have to do so with a timer on my controller or a light timer, at a set time each day. Can this be done without crash course in programming ANDROID phone?

I was going to post this on CoralVue site on RC, but found that they apparently no longer have a site here? Where have you gone CoralVue? Woo, woo, woo.

Thanks,

Mike

[shaginwagon13]

Any updates for these Maxspect Ethereal? I am considering buying them for my all SPS tank and wanted some more reviews from those who have tried them out on an SPS tank.

[shaginwagon13]

Anyone?

[tmnigat]

I have two of these and they've worked fairly well for me so far. I don't have alot of SPS, but the few frags I do have have grown pretty well in the 8 months I've had these lights. I have a few acro's that have encrusted nicely and started growing their own branches and a chalice that has doubled in size. Also have a montipora that has tripled, i think its just an easy coral though. My tank is less than a year old and still pretty new but going good.

One nice thing, Maxspect recently updated their app for programming the lights. The new app works much better than the old app and so far seems like much an improvement. I think they updated it for the new recurve lights coming out but will take the changes regardless.