Ai Vega - A Review (With Pictures)

[rstar]

Hello everyone, just wanted to share a review of the AI Vega.

I've been looking at changing my lighting out from T5 to LED for the past year, but hadn't found anything enticing enough to move me over. After exhaustive research I had narrowed it down to two fixtures. The Maxspect Razor or the AI Vega. After hearing a string of negative reviews from vendors and hobbyists alike, I decided to pass on the Razor and picked up the Vega.

First a little background.

I am currently running a 50G (36X18X18) rimless aquarium. Tank has been running for about 2 years now, and ran a single TEK 4 bulb fixture. I ran 3 ati blue bulbs and one new gen coral light (14K). I always found that T5 lighting (especially the blue) washed out the colors in the tank, and it always looked "inky" to me. For flow I am running two mp10's in ecosmart mode, which an ac110 for filtration. Aqua C Remora for a skimmer.

When choosing an LED fixture I wanted to go with something that was close to full spectrum to bring out as much pop from my corals as possible, as I've read about alot of unhappy LED users complaining that their corals loosing color over time. I also wanted to choose something that wouldn't have too much "disco" effect.

I have to say all in all, I am very impressed with the light so far. It has been running for 3 weeks now and in all my years of reefkeeping, I havent seen my corals react to anything as possitively or quickly as changing from the T5's to the LED.

When I first hung the fixture and fired it up I felt the light almost looked dim. But after a week I quickly realized that it definetly was not dim, but that the tank no longer looked washed out. The light is for sure much more focused and as such doesn't spill out everywhere making it look incredibly bright, but it is REALLY bright where it counts... In the tank.

I chose to pick up one fixture for the time being and see how it does, and as I said above, so far am impressed. I have it hung about 9 inched above the water, and feel I have adequate coverage, with dimming only being slightly noticeable in the top corners. To compensate I re-aquascaped to have most of my rockwork in the center of the tank.

Setting up the light with the new wireless controller was a breeze, and am currently running a 10:00 am sunrise with 3 hour ramp and sunset begining at 8pm for total shutdown at 11:00pm. For intensities I am running all channels at 100% except the whites which run at 85% max, this achieved the color I am happiest with. Alot of Vega users say that with the red and green channels maxed it creates disco, but I cannot see it, the only place I notice separation of the green and red is areas of very deep shadow. Perhaps if you had alot of high rockwork with big overhangs it would be noticeable, but it really doesn't bother me.

As far as coral health, well I've never seen my corals happier, or more colorful, polyp exension where there was none, and growth like you wouldn't believe. Some may be asking if I changed my T5's regularly, and yes I was faithful at changing them out every 8-10 months.

My only complaint thus far is that when my light is cooling off in the evening the fan get noisy for about a minute as it begins to idle down, and I am currently talking with AI to resolve this. Time will tell how the corals fare in the long term and I will keep updating as time allows. On a final note, I do think I will eventually add a second fixture, just to fill the tank out more, not so much for extra brightness. That being said here are some photos of the tank with the Vega. These are comepletly unedited photos, with the white balance set so that it acurately reflects what the eye sees. Thank you for reading this and enjoy!


IMG_0121 by rstar26, on Flickr


IMG_0157 by rstar26, on Flickr


IMG_0165 by rstar26, on Flickr


IMG_0146 by rstar26, on Flickr


IMG_0169 by rstar26, on Flickr


IMG_0172 by rstar26, on Flickr


IMG_0115 by rstar26, on Flickr


IMG_0131 by rstar26, on Flickr


IMG_0145 by rstar26, on Flickr


IMG_0142 by rstar26, on Flickr