Speaker:
Today, we're going to talk about the lighting that I'm using out here in the aquarium galleries, specifically the racking system. I know many of you guys have been waiting to see what it is that I'm using and I got to tell you that I'm really excited about this. I planned on making a fancy video for you guys and just being elaborate about it and making it exciting and whatnot, but at the end of the day I love these lights, and I'm using them. You guys don't really need all that I suspect you'd rather just see, what am I using, what do I like about them, and what can they do? That's exactly what we're going to do. Let's just jump right into a few things.
One, you guys know that EcoTech is a huge supporter of the aquarium gallery, they've helped out tremendously with lighting and pumps and their wavemakers and whatnot absolutely awesome support. What you guys don't know is that before this gallery was even a thing it was just-- the building I was still constructing it I met with these guys, and we talked about a number of things. One of them was, what does the freshwater hobby need? For me going to a lot of saltwater events, it was clear that the freshwater hobby truly lacks technology by far, and not just technology, affordable technology. Specifically, in lighting, I wanted a light that can do whatever, I wanted it to do.
I wanted to change spectrums, I wanted it to increase intensity, I wanted it to be able to do anything I needed to do, I also wanted to grow plants, and I wanted it for 200 bucks or less that's where we're at with this sort of thing. What I'm going to show you there's no way anybody's building this for 200 bucks, not even myself. What I didn't know was EcoTech and Aquaillumination joined forces a long time ago, what I was doing at that point was I was actually describing to them a light that already existed in the saltwater hobby. They laughed and said, "That's part of our company as well and you'll be pleased to know that we're coming out with a freshwater version.
That's exactly what I've been using is the AI Freshwater Prime, these have already begun shipping and I knew I had to get this video up for you guys and show you what I'm using, as well as show it to you in action and whatnot. Here it is, look how tiny this little thing is. One of the things I like about this the most is obviously its price point, but I also like how compact and sleek it is. That's not the best part about this thing you see, you can control this from your phone, from your computer, anywhere in the world essentially.
Watch. [laughs] I love it, I love the fact that it's totally customizable, you put it on timers or if you want it to just slowly come on in the day and slowly go off at night, and whatever color spectrums you want to occur. For example, what I preferably like about it the most is that every one of my aquariums looks different. You could put lights on every one of your tanks and they're all going to look the same. With me we have so many different distributions of fish and where they're from that I didn't want all the lighting to look the same, I wanted it to look appropriate for that region or appropriate for that aquarium. Each tank looks dramatically different in my opinion, especially in person.
Of course, the camera is just going to auto-correct color and whatnot, but in person, it's absolutely stunning, not all the tanks have the same brightness, or the same color spectrum, not all of them come on or go off at the same time. Most importantly, like I said I control it from my phone, so if I'm never home I can control that anywhere in the world as long as I connect this to Wi-Fi. I can shut them off anytime I want especially in tanks that have no plants, there's absolutely no reason for my lights to be running when I'm not home.
Which is ideal for saving power and energy even though these only take up about 50 watts, but say if, for example, if you have a dim down considerably, of course, you're not going to be using its full power. It's definitely bright, it's going to do whatever you need it to do. One of the things I really like about it is the fact that if I turn down other colors, say if I turn down a lot of the cool whites, warm white, deep red, green, and I just blast the blue, that blue can use a lot of the power that the other lights are no longer using. You're not always at putting an LED to 100%, for example, you can turn down another color to 80% and then take that 20% and throw it into the blues which would be 120%, so they're extra bright.
These are actually rated for an area of about 24 by two feet by two feet or three feet by three feet. That's based on EcoTech's and Aquaillumination's rating of how much power it's actually going to get and how much use it is. If you're just using these to light your aquarium I'm telling you this can light a 120-gallon aquarium no problem, it all depends on how bright you put it and how far away from the aquarium you put it. There's a couple of ways to mount these to your tank I'll show you in a minute. Right now I'm only at about two watts of power, all the lights are off in this room so we can get a good idea of how well it's going to light it.
Of course, this is just a very generic idea, but this is right down sitting on top and the further away you put it the more the coverage is going to get. Let me turn it up to 50% and now you can see light. They're saying this is only good for a 2 by 2 tank, this tank is 8 feet long by 3 feet wide, do I think it's going to give you ample light coverage? This is actually only about 12 inches from the surface as well. Do I think it's going to give you ample light coverage? It depends on the look you're going to look for.
Maybe you want to angle it and do some shadows, maybe you just want to light specific regions of your aquarium, maybe you just need extra light somewhere, let's blast it up to a 100% and see what that's going to look like, boom. Will it light a big tank? I think so, at 200 bucks you certainly can't go wrong especially if you grab two of these, of course, that's going to add up over time. In my opinion, they light up really well, now on my normal aquariums on the racking system, not a single light is past 40%, I'm not even coming close to using their potential. There you have it, this is what I'm using I'm absolutely in love with them, I love the fact of having complete and total control over my lighting.
Once you get a taste for this type of control it's entirely addicting, I can see why technology is just booming in the saltwater industry, and I'm entirely exciting for EcoTech and Aquaillumination to finally bring technology and more advanced products to the freshwater hobby. For 200 bucks you've got built-in fans, you've got the LEDs that has its own Wi-Fi built-in that you can control from anywhere in the world, you can't beat that for $200 and you guys know that. There is a couple of ways to mount this, we should probably talk about that. You've got two options these options do not come with the light, you buy them separately, which is good you get to choose based on your own situation.
One is the hanging kit, now this hanging kit pretty much just goes on the back of the light screws in comes up. You can hang it from your ceiling, that's my preferred way although you can also use the tank mount kit, which is also really interesting, and it looks really good I've used both. Depending on the situation, the hanging kits are being used in the racks and then on the saltwater nano I'm using the mount. I can attest that these will grow plants and these certainly will grow coral depending on the one you get, the saltwater versions already available, it cost a little bit more I think it's 229, 249, but this is only 199 and that's in US dollars.
I'm probably leaving some things out so I invite you to check it out that website and read up in my opinion though these are by far my favorite lights so far just based on what they're able to do. Like I said once you have the ability to have full control over the way your fish are going to look like, the way your tank is going to display, when it's going to do that, and how it's going to do that, the intensity, the timing, everything about it. I guarantee you it's going to change the way you look at your aquariums. I should also mention I don't typically do product reviews, and I didn't think this would be one, but I should say that this is not sponsored.
EcoTech, didn't pay me anything to say this, in fact, they said they don't want any commercials or anything like that, we just want you to use it, and if people seeing you using it and they want to be able to emulate these results they'll know what to do. I'm too excited not to talk about it though they clearly did send me these, I didn't pay for any of these but just to stay on the up-and-up with you guys as I always do. They're not paying me to say anything like this, in fact, they didn't want a video at all, but I like them enough to make the video.
