HLC-48A

This tank is a 125Gal planted tank. I have used 2 36" T5 HO light fixtures for ever on this tank, but decided to go LED since the costs are now reasonable. One of my light fixtures died a while ago and the bulbs in the last fixture were fading fast. This is the 48" Finnex Planted+ 24/7 HLC Aquarium LED Light and is very bright and the color temp is very natural looking and give my fish vibrant colors. I keep it on the 24/7 timer so it simulates natural sunrise to sunset to moonlight. I think the light output is great if you have low to med plants. If you want to go brighter or are running a CO2 setup, you may need a second fixture which I am considering. Doing nothing else but changing out the light. I have noticed what plants were left in the tank started to really green up in about a week. The evening moon glow is really awesome and my clown loaches come out an play a lot more than they used to. This is a great light and worth the price.

I bought the 30" version of this light, to replace a Current Satellite that stopped working. I had been a big fan of the Current lights, but am SO HAPPY with this Finnex light, I am now waiting for the other Currents to stop working so I can replace them too! The Finnex: - has a comparable price - Includes the auto ramp feature, which the Current makes you buy separately (so I guess that makes it $50 cheaper!) - is brighter - is thinner - sits about an inch higher, which light the tank more evenly, protects from splash better, and has more 'shimmer' effect from the surface ripples. - is more adjustable (width) - is more programmable. There are 8 independent time-of-day settings, can be set to different colors which fade from one to the other through the day (or not, if you just want auto/manual on & off). The factory, out-of-the-box settings use this 24 hour fade feature to simulate night, morning, noon, evening. I am quite happy with the factory settings, but may decide to tweak them to have a longer 'full sun' period.

I LOVE my new Finnex 24/7 Planted Aquarium LED light. It is so sweet. The design is awesome and it is super thin. The color set up works great, the 24/7 setting is beautiful, and the plants and fish all look great under this light. It has a myriad of settings and is easy to use. This is the second Finnex 24/7 lamp that I have used on this tank. My cat destroyed the little remote sensor that the older lamps used. This lamp has the sensor built in so there are fewer cords. Lastly, the old lamp had no full dark setting in the automatic 24/7 mode. This lamp actually goes full dark and has a much more realistic and life like light cycle..

This is a competent and capable light once you figure out how to program it. There is a 24/7 preset which I ignore. Instead, I’ve opted to program my own 24/7 setting that consists of 3 hours of gradually increasing light, 3 hours of peak brightness, 3 hours of gradually decreasing light, and then 15 hours of off-time. I like lighting to have a touch of warmth and to bring out the reds and greens, so I set the HLC to utilize the red and white LEDS the most, followed by some green and just a smidgen of blue. However, I don't full blast the white LEDs. Like other sub-$100 aquarium plant lights, the color temperature is too cold,. This is the biggest knock against the HLC in my opinion. The color temperature is north of 7,000 kelvin. The sweet spot, though, for a more naturalistic look, is around 5,000 kelvin. However, budget aquarium lights don't achieve this. They look artificially bluish. To offset the garish color temperature, I crank up the reds. The reds on the HLC, however, appear to be purely for aesthetics; they're not designed to enhance photosynthesis. The fixture itself is well-built, looks clean and modern and doesn’t get hot at all. I also like that it’s controlled via remote and not an app on my phone—it makes it less likely to immediate obsolescence. This is a very good light, overall. The only light under $100 that bests the HLC, and is in fact leagues above it, would be the Chihiros RGB A Plus, but I believe it's been discontinued, or at least it's not available in the US anymore. The only other light under $100 that I'd recommend would be another one by Finnex, the ALC, which is a bit stronger. The HLC, though, produces a better looking light.

So far it’s awesome. It’s a great light that’s VERY thin and low profile. Love the 24-7 automatic set and forget setting that mimics natural time changes through the day. You can manually adjust it too, color intensities and time settings. Fish are loving it. Recommend.

I researched LED lighting for some time before I purchased the Finnex Planted+ 24/7 HLC Aquarium LED Light. My plants are growing very nicely (see photos) and there is enough algae for the algae eating fish with this LED light bar. I only need one and I had had two hoods of of a total of four fluorescent tubes before and I spent close to the same amount that this LED light cost on four tubes annually. I am very, very happy with this light. The programming takes a bit to figure out. I found some info in Amazon questions as to how to program it. The three hour time periods would be better if they were two hour. Just a note. If you want your lights to go on at 6 AM then you need to program it for 9 AM. The lights start going on three hours prior to whatever time you set it. I did not like the preset program that had a lot of red light so I programmed it to the spectrum that I liked. This is a great LED light if you have a heavily planted aquarium. The two things that need improvement are: The legs slide off easily when handling the light hood and need to be tighter in the track. Second, the time period choices need to be one or two hour periods to give the user more flexibility. Remote comes with three hour periods which are not flexible enough. And a big negative is that when the electricity flashes or goes out completely you have to reprogram the start time as this fixture has no reserve power such as a coffeemaker. Other than that I love it !

This light is fantastic I live in the UK and have a tank with the fluval planted 3 on and its a good light but wanted something different for my 70 litre shrimp tank, I always heard good things about finnex from people across the pond so I took a chance and purchased the planted 24/7. Well I'm glad I did Only downside is the brackets could be better quality but still ok and the light is fantastic and growing my plants well without co2. Highly recommended and would not hesitate to purchase another one.

This light only works via remote that ships with it. In my case, I couldn't power on a brand new light even though all of the indicators suggested that everything was working. The Finnex support team was also stumped for why the light wasn't working. The issue is that there is no way to manually turn on the light with a button, switch, etc. It's either the remote, or you have an expensive paperweight. I wouldn't recommend this light because even if the remote does work for a few years, eventually it will break, and eventually you'll wish that you had a way to manually power on/off your light. I got a Fluval 3.0 instead, and while it costs a lot more, it's also much better than the planted plus. As an aside, the Finnex support agent tried to blame the light not working on an Amazon scam by saying that it was probably repackaged and sold as new, even though the light came exactly as they described a new, unopened one would. They offered no useful solutions other than LOL AMAZON BAD! Here's a solution for you, Finnex: put a power button on the light!

It's a fabulous light for an aquarium. What is very good about this light is that its brilliant leg design is such that it can used for both rimless and braced tanks. Most of the new led lights are for rimless tanks. It is so easy to put the legs onto the fish tank. It's relatively stable too. The other plus is the 24 hour light scenes. Just leave on alone and it should imitate mother nature's lighting timings. The light is sufficient for a planted tank but if you want faster plant growth, especially for your red plants, you need to look at another brand. It is a very good light for those who are not willing to spend too much on lighting for your aquarium. I recommend it highly.

La lampara cumple con las especificaciones, por el momento me encuentro satisfecho con el producto.

Only a month and the fixture has already froze up, and won't accept commands. Will turn on and off but is stuck in programming mode. Should have just bought a fluvol