NICREW HyperReef 150W Gen 1 Aquarium LED Reef Light, Dimmable Full Spectrum Marine LED for Saltwater Coral Fish Tanks

This is the first review I have ever posted. This is a very nice light. I have had 2 100 watt over my 58 gal. Reef tank since March 2022. I also bought the Nicrew timer that is available on Amazon. Lights: so I was going back and forth with this light and other cheap led lights on Amazon. I thought I would try to help other with this decision and getting info out there that I struggled to find. One of the biggest differences with the Nicrew and other black box led lights is that you don’t have an outlet over your tank with the Nicrew. Obviously it still wouldn't be good if this fell In the tank, but not as dangerous as having an outlet hanging over the tank like with the black box lights. The fan is quieter than my skimmer. I have NEVER heard the fan running unless I put my ear directly to the light. Mounting; mounting can be a pain if you don’t have a rimless tank. I had the space to get a screw driver between the tank and wall, so was able to loosen the mounting bracket and tighten it after getting over my rim. One bracket had a slight bend in it and after reaching out to Nicrew the sent me a new mounting bracket (this one was stainless steel, and very nice. Not sure why they don’t include this bracket in the original box. It is ALOT nicer). I think i had a new bracket within 3 days. Timer: tha timer is great. It comes with two wires to daisy them together. You will need to play around with the timer to get the settings you like, but it is not difficult at all. If I knew this was easily available, I would have bought these lights two months earlier. PAR: I was finally able to get a PAR reading. These lights are bright. I run them at 100% blue and 35% white. See the following for readings: Sand bed - 100-120 Lower shelf (4-6inches off sand bed) - 175-200 Mid tank - 225 250 A few inches under water level - 300+ The spread seemed very even though out the tank. I would strongly recommend these lights to any hobbyist looking for a much cheaper alternative.

Looks good so far. I have these mounted under my Aquatic life T5 hybrid fixture. They do a good job of lighting the tank. Only downside is I can't find much data on using the built in 10v ports to control the lights and create a ramp up and down. I have 3 100w versions mounted over my 180 gallon tank and there is minimal shadowing. I will be having my LFS stop by and do a par reading before I start adding corals. Update, I have since started using these with my Apex system. The lights can be controlled fairly easily using the neptune app. I only have the blues working at the moment, I have not quite figured out how to ramp both using the cable given, but I typically only run these for the blue spectrum and run my t5 during daylight hours. Before this I was using the nicrew single channel timers and they worked great. It helps to have a smart outlet that you can synchronize all of them with at midnight if you are running multiple lights. The nicrew timers are nice because they are inexpensive and will ramp blues and whites simultaneously, just select your spectrum and you are set. These lights are fantastic. I have seen growth from my acans already and they have only been in the tank 3 weeks. Would highly reccomend.

The lights and Brackets are well made. The brightness of the lights are excellent . I purchased 2 150 watt for my 90 gallon 48 inch reef tank. I am currently only using a maximum of 65% blue and 45% white currently to see how my corals in my mixed reef react, all is well a week after installation. I would love to give the product a 5 star except for a couple problems . The light bracket would not fit over the edge of my 90g rimmed tank i had to take the adjusting nut off screw to get over tank edge. Near to impossible to put nut back on after bracket is over tank not enough space to hold and thread back on. I never put back on. I used a couple of thin plastic discs to tighten between glass and screw to distribute tension of screw against glass . Be careful not to over tighten it is not necessary. The controller that i purchased works well. Except i found it quite difficult to program and directions enclosed and videos on line are not very specific. I am not real good at tech stuff . I have managed to program 2 separate programs . I will just leave be for now .

PRODUCT: This is the review for about 2.5 years of using NICREW 150W Aquarium LED Reef Lights. Now, it's very important to understand that I'm writing in regards to my experience with these lights, I'm not comparing them to the lights in a $1.000 range. I purchased these two lights on Dec 1, 2022. After two years both lights are working great!! I have Innovative Marine 100g INT tank (47.3" x 23.6" x 19.7") Two of these lights are more than plenty for the tank with these dimensions. All the LPS and SPS in the tank love it. Aesthetically lights have a very solid build, look great on top of the tank. The lights come with solid metal holders. Altogether the whole light set up looks great! BAD: There are nothing bad about these lights. I would wish is that the next version would have: 7 controllable channels instead of two. Each light would have at least one more uv bulb. As of right now the white channel uses tons of bulbs, tons of space and being used at 10-15%. From the engineering stand point it would make sense to reduce the white channel assets and expand on light blue, purple and UV bulbs (at least by 3 bulbs). OPERATION: I use these lights with the NICREW HyperReef Light Controller. The lights are VERY powerful, don't even think about running them at 100%, unless you want to burn everything in your tank I set them up to run for 10 hours daily: One hour to ramp lights up - WHITE at 5% - BLUE at 5% Eight hours for full power of - WHITE at 10% - BLUE at 65% One hour to ramp lights down - WHITE at 5% - BLUE at 5% At this settings the lights work very quietly and do not generate much of heat FIXES: On July 19, 2024 after 2.5 years, controller that was plugged in into the light #2 stopped working. I unplugged the controller and plugged it into the light #1 and controller started working again. So I concluded that the problem is with the light #2. Then Light #2 simply stopped powering on and just occasionally would flash. After some investigation I found out is that the power adapter has failed. I just unplugged the light and plugged it into the power supply of light #1 and light #2 came back to life. So I went to Amazon and purchased "NICREW AC/DC Adapter for 150 Watts HyperReef LED Light". So when you light will fail (all lights will fail eventually), do yourself a favor and connect it to the other light power supply.

I have 3 Nicrew Reef Lights, two 100 watts and one 150 watt. All have had the AC/DC power adapters go bad. When this happens you might think it's the light itself, but if you swap the light to the good adapter (of the proper wattage) you'll find the light is fine, it's the adapter. A VOM on the output of the adapter further confirms it. The light itself is good, puts out decent color which can be controlled with 5 step levels each for the white and blue channels. It's no Radion, but they grow SPS, clams and everything else in a mixed reef fine, and the blues make the colors pop reasonably well. The Radions can make the colors glow more, if that's your thing. And if you want more control you can get their spectral controller, which is widely derided as being difficult to use - but I haven't tried it myself since I have a similar Kessil controller that worked, and is much more inuitive supposedly (I never needed a manual - manuals are for suckers lol). If only the power adapters didn't fail, or they weren't so expensive (near $50 for the 150 watt, available on Amazon). Also you can't find the voltage/amperage combination with generic adapters, the Nicrews require some oddball spec, so you are stuck buying the replacement adapters through them. Like ink for printers, it must be Nicrews business model to make money off of the power bricks. Boo! Think I'll knock off another star - writing this review is souring me even more on these lights.

OVERALL An excellent, value light for small saltwater aquariums. I use AI Prime lights for my main tank, but I am swapping all my 'utility' tanks lights out for these. Reviewed with expectations for growing soft corals and anemones in a small tank with minimal cost. I had no expectations to successfully maintain hard corals. It may be able to handle lower light hard corals, but it would be difficult in my small tank. I have used this for 6 months on a 15 gal nano currently acting as my quarantine tank. Permanent residents are Kenya Trees, Ricordia & other misc mushrooms and a Bubble Tip anemone - no permanent fish. The anemone has the highest lighting requirment and it's health is my benchmark. The setup is easy, but getting the mount over any edge or lip can be challenging. I had to cut some plastic rim slots to allow. Rimless tanks shouldn't be an issue. The controls are intuitive with a reasonable amount of intensity levels: 6 each for White / Blue. Everything is thriving with the Blue channel at 3 with the White channel at 1. It gives a reasonably attractive color for viewing. More individual color control would be nice, but unreasonable to expect at this price point. One thing that could be done is to reduce the overall white impact. Even if i set the Blue channel to 6 (Max) the White channel only needs a 2 to provide a balanced output for most reef tanks-IMHO. I didn't count this against the product much, just an area for improvement GOOD Cost Reasonable color rendition Adequate power for soft corals in a small tank Ease of Use BAD Installation over a lip may be an issue The tightening nuts feel flimsy and doesn't match the quality of other parts.

Latest Update- I contacted customer service and they sent me a new power unit which was what was malfunctioning. Everything is working well now and I’m very pleased. Great customer service, great light, my corals are looking great and showing growth. Updated- after only being in use for month this light has stopped working. That makes it a waste of money. I have bought three for my 120 gallon tank and in less than a month one is out already so I’m sure that the other two are not far behind. I will contact the company hopefully they have something good to tell me. Update #2- Great customer service and they replace the part that was broken and now the lights are working great again. UPDATE AFTER A FEW MONTHS: The first thing I want to say is that I stand by my assertion that this is the top of the line reef light that you can get for this price. The only thing I wanna caution you on is to make sure that you rent an PAR meter from your local fish store to check the settings on your units. I never did that and when I went and rented one and checked it I was getting over 700 par right below the waterline and over 400 at the bottom of the tank which is WAY too high. I had to make major adjustments (raising the lights) and I can only run these lights on medium (that’s on a 6 foot 125 gallon tank.) too much PAR is just as bad as not enough or maybe even worse in terms of bleaching or burning up your corals. You can’t beat the price on this even though they don’t have all the fancy timer functions and everything.

Ok so for the money, I like the light. It does exactly what it says. It’s a fairly new tank (14 gallon) so I’m not sure how well it will grow corals or whatnot yet. It looks nice. It doesn’t come with a timer which is fine because for the price point I wouldn’t expect one. However I did have a small issue with the light. The power cable is a daisy chain. There is a short or something where the daisy chain connects. The light will occasionally flicker, dim or turn off entirely. I’ve messed with the plug and I can tell where the short is. I contacted NICREW customer service and they refused to replace the half of the plug that is malfunctioning. I even sent them videos of what it was doing. They advised me to send it back for a refund which honestly puts me off a little bit. I don’t understand why they can’t send me a $1 part so I don’t have to go to all of the trouble to send the unit back. I no longer have the box or anything.

I have nicrew lights in my FW tanks over 2 years those came cheap and are super value. when i switched iver to Saltwater tanks I needed one within my budget I already have a Phlizon , on my bigger tank. but thats too much for my 20g. Checked a couple and returned, but really liked the Nicrew 30w - i run these auto on a kasa smart plug which is timer based, saves settings as last time so dont need the wifi timer -great light (thats the most imp feature , i rerurned a lomini pixie 30 , was not sufficient) - This should be great for corals, I like the blue theme - will set the brightness based on par requirements when i get the corals i want for this 20(yet to get them),this can get so much more brighter than in the photo -doesnt break the bank

Great for a budget light. Nice color variation. Not quite as good as a Radeon or Ai prime but still very effective for coral coloration and growth.

Nicrew HyperReef 50W is an awesome Coral Reef aquarium Light! I like the fact that Nicrew has Blues, UVs and Royal Blue LEDs are on separate channel from Whites (unlike Lominie A120 has all colours mixed on every channel). LEDs are spread in the round pack to give nice lighting patch but still close enough together to have shimmer (must have water surface agitation). Very Nice controller (sold separately) that truly gives you a very slow brightness increase/decrease for Sunrise/Sunset effect. The only bad thing about controller is that there is no phone app and you can Not change programming without turning the lights OFF (bad for sensitive reef animals) Nicrew 50W is a Good Built light fixture with large heat sink, large quiet fan with large blades, and a good heat sensor that keeps the fan OFF most of the time when not needed. Fan is not ON unless the light is closer to 100% power. Has large Heat sink. Nicrew's Bracket/leg is nicely built with an orifice for cable management, easy to adjust and easy to fit over rimmed or rimless. If you have a tank brace all you need to do is to remove plastic nuts from the bracket bolts and it will fit beautifully. There is some sort of glue on the threads so make sure to move the nut back and forth before cranking hard. Mainly because how corals and fish look under the A120 light, how crisp, crystal-clear water looks under the Lominie A120 80W, with that deep blue ocean color hue, good light shimmer (almost too much, with high water surface agitation) and how amazingly punchy solid and bright fish, anemones and corals look under the Lominie A120. Everything else is a matter of preference, convenience and other factors like controls or included accessories. Both lights are awesome for the price and easily 4 Stars, both with their own pros and cons. I would give 5 Stars to Lominie A120 if i was sure if good reliability of the unit and if the fan was truly silent (not that cheap PC fan). It would be 5star also if Lominie did NOT mix whites and blues on all Channels (Who came up with that idea ?!) A120 would be 5stars if the had a Controller designed for corals and would be ramping up/down gradually instead of sudden jumps to the next setting (so annoying). Most likely I will update later to increase the rating to 5 Stars if the light will work more than two years. A true silent fan with slow RPM and large fan blades would be ideal instead of cheap PC fan. NiCrew HyperReef 50W Power supply is rated 60W Pros: -Good, very nice looking fixture, Solid build. -Very quiet (silent) fan. -Fan is not ON right away, only on when at ~90-100%. -Large heat sink. -LED Emitters are spaced apart for a good true 12"x12" (even more) light spread (single 50W light covers more than half of my 36" wide 24 deep 65 Gal reef) -Good LED color mix lens so no laser dots on the reef -Coraline algae looks very good under Nicrew lights. -Nice Tap/touch soft touch button light control, long power cord with quick disconnect, -Good fixture Hight/Length adjustment, Solid Bracket with a round orifice for power cable. -Can control multiple units with one controller. -Ok shimmer when water surface is agitated. -Purple Coralline algae looks AWESOME under NiCrew 50W -Separate control for Blue and for White (Unlike Lominie A120 has main Whites and main Blues on the same channel) -Light runs at 41C/104F at heat sink while light is at 100% for 1hr and fan is ON. -Fits nicely on braced tank with plastic trim (Simply remove the plastic nuts from plastic bolts and it will fit) Nicrew 50W Cons: -If water is not crystal clear, it Could Generate a murky kind of light effect when closer than 6-8" to the water surface, almost makes it look like a cloudy water, ok when higher up. -Does not have that crystal-clear punchy coral and fish color pop as it ONLY has 1(one) UV led per pack compare to Lominie A120 has 10 (ten!) (only visible when both Nicrew and Lominie A120 are on the same tank side by side) -Power supply is smaller size and running at 48C/118F -Limited light color control , only two controllable channels: White including all the other colors and Blue. ---No remote control included, no Wi-Fi control, no green/red/violet/"uv"/warm white/royal blue separate control. -Did Not come with a ceiling hanging kit.(Lominie A120 comes with hanging kit) -Only has 24 LEDs compare to 48 LEDs in Lominie A120 80W -Needs a wall timer or separately purchased expensive remote. -Need a front shade to prevent light spill in to the room and to protect our eyes. PAR measured with Apogee MQ-210 NiCrew HyperReef 50W @100% brightness. PAR measured directly below the light and will be gradually less PAR away from the center. Top of the reef @5.5" below surface 300 PAR Mid tank @9" below surface 170 PAR Bottom @19" below surface 110 PAR Running Temperature of the Power Supply (NiCrew's power supply is 60W): Light @100% for 1hr @ the hottest spot on power supply is 48C/118.4 F

6 month update- ongoing issues with Nicer, 1 light came with a power adapter, 1 did not. Nicer said they don't come with adapters and this is an additional $51+ depending on the model, despite the fact that the manual in the box says they DO COME WITH ADAPTERS. Nicer keeps denying it and just wants you to spend more money if I were to I would be in the $400 range so I decided just to spend a bit more and go with the new Aqua Illumination Blades as I know exactly what I will get. They were just okay in the 6 months I had them they kept things alive but the colours are very muted and not what I was expecting - watch the reviews on YouTube they say the same things - ok for growth but not ok for colours. Do what I did and spend a bit more to get a better long-term light. ----------------------------------------- Initially I purchased the 159 watt model and they sent me the 100 watt model that was obviously a return as it was not wrapped nor did it come with a power adapter. I had to buy a new one from Nicrew. Even then the light just seemed blah and not at all what I was expecting especially after seeing all the rave reviews on YouTube., Then I just bought a second light again 100w as the speed is 18"x18" and on my 103 gallon Neptunian cube which is 3 feet by 3 feet they should give me the correct speed as well as it is only 18" deep the par should be slightly higher. The 2nd light arrived, was plugged in to the controller and both now have the same settings. The light ion the left is obviously not working correctly and the one on the right is what I would expect initially. Amazon were great and have resent a new light so all things being equal if they both have the correct brightness I will update this review to a 5 star. Will have to wait and see.

Hey everyone my review for this product, lights are good have worked very well for my system specifically. I do believe the AC Adapter are extremely cheap as I bought 3 of these lights alittle over a year ago and all of the AC adapter have failed. Frustrating part is I cannot find replacement ac adapters even on Amazon. If you plan on purchasing the lights they are good quality for the price but the power adapter are terrible. Good luck.