Finnex Ray2 Aquarium LED Daylight, 48-Inch

This review is for the 48" Ray2 Daylight. I have only had it in use for less than 24 hours, but will give my initial impressions.

This product is made in China and is noticeable from the packaging (plain brown box) to the vague instruction sheet and very limited warranty.

The light itself is very compact and seems to have an average build. The supplied legs do not fit on a 1" tank frame, this was not an issue in my situation, since due to the light intensity I immediately knew that I had to raise it from the tank, I have a canopy and with this fixture being very lightweight, 3 zip ties easily mounted it about 4 inches from the water surface.

I purchased this light while planning to set up a standard 90 gallon tank, I truly expected to have to add supplemental lighting to reach the low light range for some of the plants I was planning on keeping, to my surprise this light far exceeded what I had expected, it is definately beyond the low light range even with a 24" depth, to the point where I will need to either diffuse the light or add co2 and ferts to keep the algae at bay. I do have a good bit of experience with planted tanks, HO lighting and injected c02, but unfortunately I just dont have much knowledge of par ratings which would help myself or others interested in this light to determine where this will put their tank. Overall, I am very happy with this purchase and am fully confident that I will be able to grow more than the orginal plants I had expected to grow.

I will do an update in a month or so after after I see how plants respond and if there are any algae issues. Hope this helps!

Update:

After about 2 months of use, I love this light. My original impression was it may have been too much light but so far I have no algae issues and am not dosing any ferts. All plants are responding well, current plants are anubius, java fern, crypts, val, wysteria, red ludwigia and tiger lotus. I did have a brief power outage about a week after set up and when the power came back on only half the strip was lit, I feared what some other reviewers had mentioned, but after turning the power switch off and back on all lights were on. Another plus, I have almost no increase to my electric bill!

I picked up one of these for my 75G tank. I've wanted to keep plants in there in the past, but the 4' bulbs just weren't doing it.

Ordered the Finnex Ray2 when the bulbs went on my old Coralife fixture, and I've been very pleased with the results.

The tank itself is much brighter now, and plant growth throughout the tank has really taken off. I'll be ordering more of these as my old bulbs burn out. Why sink the money on bulbs that last a year when you can get a fixture that will last 7+ years. Great purchase, and a MASSIVE improvement over the garbage Marineland Double Brights.

edit: after excellent initial growth, the plant growth slowed way down. The light still works great, and I would still recommend this unit, but if you're going for a heavily planted tank this may not be the best option.

Buy Finnex Ray2 Aquarium LED Daylight, 48-Inch Now

I purchased this light to replace a previous 332 watt amazon purchase that got hot enough to melt the fish tank supports.

Ordered it yesterday and it was on my doorstep today WOW!

Packaging was great. Plugged it in and it is very bright. My tank is a 150 gallons salt water with some mushrooms,anenomes and polyps. The previous lighting was 2 48" 220 watt power compact JEBO kits that worked great for about 8 years. I would say this LED light set is as bright or slightly brighter then 1 220/260 watt power compact light kit.

The light is very white like 10,000 Kelvin.

I LOVE how cool it gets, I would say it is under 130 degrees afte being on for 4 + hours.

Read Best Reviews of Finnex Ray2 Aquarium LED Daylight, 48-Inch Here

I was pretty disappointed with the unit I received. I immediately plugged it in and fired it up when I got it, only to find that half the LEDs did not turn on. Due to my location, an exchange would probably end up costing me more in shipping than this light is worth, so I popped it open. Finnex uses exceedingly low quality solder inside this thing, and in my unit some parts were not even soldered, just shoved in the casing. I spent about an hour resoldering and reassembling the unit, it works great now. In the meanwhile, you get what you pay for, look elsewhere for your LED lighting needs.

Want Finnex Ray2 Aquarium LED Daylight, 48-Inch Discount?

Ordered one, received it, only half of the LEDs worked, returned it, repeat. The 48" version appears to have two LED strips from teh 24" version.

Decided to use two smaller ones instead. There appear to be some product quality issues so it would be wise to use multiple smaller lights instead of one larger light. That way, when one fails in the future, you only have to replace a smaller one.

General Finnex Ray2 Daylight info:

LED strip is about 1" per 8 LEDs. Product description shows the number of LEDs. This may be important to you because 16" version only has 10.5" of LEDs. The 30" version has the exact same LED strip as the 24" version.

Obtain the number of LEDs from the product description and divide by 8 to obtain width of LED strip.

I was not happy to receive a 16" version with only 10.5" of LEDs. I exchanged it for a 24" and I'm very happy with the 24".

Save 11% Off