Thanks for this. Let's all be just honest. It's a good product why do they need to pretent its more then it is. Again thanks your a big influence.

Im based in the UK and TMC hold the market for marine stock but as a hardware brand I don’t knowing buy one of their own products. Even their suppliers in the UK bad mouth their in-house products behind close door (or to the hobbyist if you know them well enough). Thanks for bringing this to a larger audience but given their reply they won’t change their ways. Surprised they didn’t blame an intern for a typo!

Well done for doing this video - really interesting. I'd love to see what all the main brand lights come in at 👍

That is crazy, if I didn’t see it with my own eyes I’d never of believed it. We all buy lights and take what the manufacturer states for granted. It’s unbelievable to think that this is actually real and a company is blatantly lying to potential customers and the community. Well done you for highlighting it and giving the community the facts before handing over their hard earned cash.. Top video as always 👍👍👍

If I have a car that goes 270mph but restricts it 170 mph with no means of unrestricting it for mechanical safety, can I advertise the car as going 270 mph? Shady stuff TMC

thanks for looking out brother! we appreciate you.

Well done and Well said sir ! Love the content your channel produces; I’m a long time subscriber !

Enjoyed the video Jake. Learned several new things relating to lighting. Thank you. 👊🤙

This is a great video. You give the Information reefers want. I just ordered two cetus lights for my 50 gallon lagoon yesterday. Love what you do.

We are troubled by some content of this video and want to explain. The Cetus 2 is sold for a purpose. That is to provide enough light to a reef tank near to 20"x 20"x 20". 84W is maximum power draw of the LEDs in the light ( 6W x 8+ 4W x 6 + 3W x 4 = 84W). These LEDs drive at 66W give increase efficiency and lifespan. It allows the attractive shape and size too. Power is not good measure of light, so higher/lower power does not mean more/less light. We prefer to make lower power lights, with high PAR. This is the way to make reef lights more effective and cost effective. Jake says he used our lights for more than a year in his tanks with great results. This means that Cetus 2 achieves the purpose it was sold for, but costs less to run. We are happy that Cetus 2 is seen as good product and this matches the support received around the world. It is tried and tested as one of the best and most affordable reef aquarium lights. The Reef Photon is manufactured for the European market and so packaging must be compliant with EU law. This mean that it shows the maximum power of the LEDs. The Reef Photon is based on the Cetus 2, but TMC redesigned app control and some hardware for their market. We are not purposely misleading, but we are now looking at how we make this clearer, as well the PAR and tank size that is already on packaging. Thank you.

Fantastic insight and well presented Jake.

Great video, we have a lot of TMC electrical products in the UK and the general advice from reefers is to avoid anything electric from TMC... Their pumps fail, their skimmers are awful, their lights are always rebadged stuff you can get for half the price online from China... Even their aquariums are lucky to last 5 years thanks to the cheap particle board/melamine stands they supply with them that are not designed for humid sump environments. The problem is basically all of our shops use TMC for livestock wholesale. They are the biggest importers of fish and coral and the only real supplier where shops can go and visit to buy rather than import sight unseen. They push this gear out aimed at noobs and slightly undercutting competitors on price and many new people buy it not knowing better and shops are happy as it pushes their TMC total up for the year making discounts available to them on future purchases. Awesome video and thanks for making it!

Well done, Jake. Totally what I’ve seen and cool you’re sharing.

Thanks for sharing Jake. I think you are highlighting the industry does not have a standard to report to. There is a difference between led light output and total draw, which are often not disclosed and there is also max draw short circuit ratings which can be important in the electrical world. I believe we should be demanding a standard which shows all these so consumer can be properly informed.

My guess is that you’re probably spot on. People are so money hungry. Thx for posting up!

Thank you for the test👍

Its fraud, as simple as that, i remeber seeing it before. You are being very lenient in your comments. Here it is, output 64w: www.reef2reef.com/threads/cetus-2-led-fixture.463085/ We need more people like you to protect the aquarium reef community. Thumbs up!

Love the Conspics and Blueline swimming with all those euphyllias! Keep up the good work

Thanks for doing this difficult but important video. What they are doing is blatant false advertising and consumer manipulation. Their claim might stand if they were selling just LED pucks, but they are not selling just an LED cluster, they are selling you the complete fixture that cannot and never will output at 84W. So for that reason their claim is a lie.

Hey Jake! Just wondering if you still use these lights, I can't decide between them and a Kessil A160.

We need more tank updates. It is not fair to show them off and then not provide us with updates. What is the point of the gallery and channel if you don’t provide updates? Twice a year per tank is not fair for those who have been loyal to this channel. I am blindly speaking for others....but I think it is safe to say that we want more! You are a leader in this space. You produce the best content. Feed us more! Live stream the updates if you have too. Love the channel! Keep up the excellent work!

Wow Thanks for this information.

Good on you for pointing this out. It would seem the manufacturers are deceiving people, perhaps not maliciously. It seems a bit concerning that these lights are being advertised at a certain wattage but they are not being driven at that wattage.

much respect for this video man. sharing knowledge no matter if its good or bad. not just being pushed by companies to sell stuff. see you in march! maybe? lots of LED's are less wattage than they advertise. learned that when converting from metal halides. any of those 165 watt chinese boxes dont even go past 120-130 watts. but they can be great lights!

TMC also known as Tacky Marine Crap in the UK

Hey Jake, would the same thing apply to pumps? I’ve never tested lights but I tested pumps with my killawatt and they were sometimes off.

Hey would it be possible for you to do a par reading on them? I have these lights and I’m struggling to figure out what to intensity to run them at

I think the thing that concerns me about this video is that you have not actually tested a TMC photon. Your testing a light which may or may not be the same light with a different label but then directing criticism at a light you do not actually have! The very least you should do is test the actual light your criticising before bad mouthing it. Im afraid this leaves me with very little faith in the validity of this channel.

Just got the tmc ones feel alittle cheated but would u say they good for sps many thanks for sharing 👍🏽

I think this problem is widespread among the off brands. Imagine how many people bought one brands 100w light and had good results. Then had those lights burn out after a few years. Then buy another brands 100w light and have their coral bleach. All because the first brand exaggerated their numbers.

Great video.! ALL companies should be held accountable for branding but also not overdrive LED's just for a marketing scam. not cool!

I was going to buy a cetus 2, now I dont know what I should do kkkk, I have a 60 L or 15 Gallon reef, what do you recomend? In Brazil its like 2500$ for the cetus 2

Great vid. Funny. They are going the route of shady hifi and car audio companies which have been doing this a long time, listing Peak power instead of RMS output rating. It's all marketing BS. They look for any possible way to misrepresent without 'lying' , as they know a lot of people don't research and buy things on impulse. Sure you can drive those leds at higher wattages, but at great cost to their longevity, largely due to the exponential increase in heat they will radiate by driving them above their most efficient operating power range.

Nice video, but, for you...who is the winner between two plafo??ai 16 hd can overpowered the channel and cetus 2 no...but to look tank with cetus 2 or with Ai 16 hd....what do u prefere about color of light?

If they were sell these in Australia and it doesn't Output what it says our Consumer commission would be all over them for false advertisement! this would cost them in a fine in the thousands!

Hey Jake I got a pare of Cetus 2ss for my 40 gallon breeder . I’m having trouble setting up the lights. So I have it set to Hawaii on at 12pm and off 10pm . Also the lights ramp up blue and at the end of the day ramp down whites . ?? Help please 🙏

Great video Jake 👍👍

Hi although u had issues with these advertising on these light u said they where ok would you hav the spectrum settings u use love the vids 😁

I have found this to be a trend with many LED fixtures and it is pretty much standard with off-brand/Chinese lights. Based on my experience working with LED manufacturers through Alibaba to build a bunch of custom lights it is standard practice to under power led chips to maximize efficiency and longevity (often around 2/3 of maximum rated power). What happens as you've seen is the manufacturers will rate their light's total wattage as a sum of the maximum rated power output of the led chips themselves when in reality the light fixture and heat sink are only designed to drive the led chips at 2/3 max power for example. At this point, I think that the overreporting of wattage is becoming commonplace and even some of these more respected brands might start choosing to do it as well to compete. That said from what it looks like I can almost guarantee you that the "reef photon" led is sourced straight from a manufacturer in china and given a brand name and nice packaging. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing but just something to be aware of.

Disgraceful. The more the truth is out there, the less they will sell, until they realise that lying to the customer no longer sells their product. Ultimately it will damage their brand and they will loose market share. Well done for spotting and highlighting this Jake :)

what settings were used on TMC?

Merci mon AMI pour cette vidéo !!! 👍👍👍

great work! We dont need lying companies in this beatifull hobby of ours.

Great video and completely agree with you. The light seems to work great so there should be no reason to hype the numbers for advertising or any other reason. It's a bit disappointing to see that.

Is it possible if you do one on the Aqua Knight A029 as well it’s a pretty popular light that many people are using

I have a couple Kessil A160s that run abit under their rating but they are about a year old for one and and year and half the other , I don't remember the numbers but one was quite abit lower than its rating ,I didn't test them when I first got them so im assuming one has a burnt out led maybe , and I have notice Kessils really really need to be cleaned and the fans blown out or they will overheat and lose power and or burn out , they are awesome lights but they do need regular cleaning especially if you have a lot of dust in your house , im going to test all my lights from now when I first buy them , I also have a brand new AI hydra 26 that one of the uv leds doesn't come on until I turn it up past 20-25% theres two uv leds and the other led comes on properly though ,and both uv leds in my other hydra26 come on properly.

The cetus dosnt say its a 85 watt only 50 Maybe reef photon does but cetus which is an H& m product dosnt. I am looking into this led but worrying about the spread being enough for a 30 wide tank. Its a 20g long so very narrow 30 x 12 x12. I know Jake has passed on sadly :( but just incase anyone else is reading comments on this led!!

With grow lights it's unscrupulously used to mean fluorescent light equivalent wattage. It's trash but not unsurprising

You see this all the time in horticulture lights - 100 3w LED's rated at 300w, even though they drive them with only 150watts. Very misleading, but I guess since there is a slight shred of legitimacy based on the specs, they claim truth and rationalize it in the name of marketing - even though it is far from the truth. A better rating system would be total PAR output at a standardized distance from the lens (in air or water).

Great video and investigation. Looks like we really need to investigate ALL led products and not just take the marketing BS as gospel.

Jake based on your experience with both of these lights would you consider lighting a most Lps mixed reef with either two HDs or Cetus 2s? The aesthetic of the cetus 2s is very appealing to me but not sure if either option would give me enough for a mixed reef. Awesome channel and website btw. Thank you for helping to advance the hobby.

How wide is that tank? I’m thinking of buying a 48 inch tank and I think I need 3 ai primes

TY for this information. Never thought this would be a thing. Very deceptive and in the near future i plan on buying new LED fixtures. I wonder...if these off brands are doing it and have been getting away with it, who's to say some of the major brands don't do the same? If someone has Gen4pros...please test for this. I would really like to know.

If a youtuber like u exposes this, its great for every consumer

Can you guys test the par readings and post them for the photons because tmc are massively vague on this also

They should atleast have something stating that they have it dialed back for longevity of the light or something kinda upsetting to say the least

interesting info

I really like the look and the intensity of those AI lights. A question that Has come up in the past, will the AI with 16 LED'S penetrate enough on a 220 gallon tank 30" deep? I realize that I would need more of them to cover the whole tank as opposed to my radion that I use 3 and are a much higher wattage.

FYI, was looking at getting a refugium started and checked out Amazon "grow lights", literally every single one of them lies in their title, 300W LED grow light... that's a lot of watts? sift though all the information, find out they're actually closer to 100W worth of lights. Even the Q/A part mentions this on quite a few and the response is either "well this replaces 300W worth of HPS lights" or "they're 3W LEDs" basically they all lie. I'm sure they'll grow Chaeto (or pot) fine, but don't assume you're getting some super powerful LED for a really good price, because you're not. Funny thing is I've even seen some labeled as 600W LED grow lights which also pull only around 100W, but it is Amazon, good luck finding any sort of "report" button to tell them they're using false advertising.

Hi jake what are your settingsd for ai's over the euphyillias?

Power from the wall is almost meaningless. You could have a smp with 80% then a buck driver at 90%. Also plug in power meters can be a little dodgy with sone power supplies.

Never buy from thhis company: Shenzhen Golden Ocean Lighting Co., Ltd. They stole my $5000 did not send anything at all

You'll need to take into consideration of the power supply efficiency. Most are probably 70%-85% efficient, so measured 55W is only 44W to the LEDs. Most LED manufacturer under power their LEDs to prevent burn out because of insufficient cooling solution for their product.

theres a huge issue with this within the horticulture industry, really have to do research.

I Have Been Saying This Got Years they add the amount of led wattage ratings butt most led are under driven by the driver so they last longer

TMC big themselves up on all their products, not surprising they added wattage.

Can you also check TMC's pumps, please? I purchased a TMC reef pump which is meant to pump 2,000 LPH but it isnt as strong as my Aquamedic pump with the same pump rating.........I feel like they have been misleading with their pumps as well!

How are the Angels with those Euphyllia? Are they behaving?

could it be that the Prime is new from the box and the other one have been used for quiet some time and the LEDs loose their power ??

I have three over a tmc reef habitat 90 which I thought was over kill now I'm not sure. I need to Par test them.

Under power but still stronger than the Ai prime 16 and I think they look nicer. But good video good to know. Thanks! Love the videos.

Lol well because the NEC ( National Electrical Code) requires the output be listed at 120% of max rating of the wattage so the electrical load will not be more than 80% of the the true load this is required by law and not the optical wattage you are getting !

Why isn’t here more info out there

This is par for the course in the aquarium industry. Flow rates and wattage are almost always higher than you get in the real world.

you are right.. they lie.. by the way the Ai Prime 16HD Reef is the better choice.. in future updates they will enable the wifi so it will be perfect..

Is there any power loss by plugging the measuring device into a power strip vs directly into the outlet?

Time to contact FTC

These lights are a very similar price to the AIs minus the controlability factor, in fact they're a bit more expensive. You'd be silly to go for them in my view especially knowing thus info . Sadly this sort of thing goes on a lot across all sorts of markets.

You know power consumption doesn’t equal the light output 😂

Light Emitting Diodes (LED's) are rated at max watts but you never "Drive" them to max because they burn up. Put a full 5w to a 5w LED chip it burns-up in a week (or less if you cannot keep it cool enough - red hot). Take this from an Electrician who has built his own LED light fixtures - sucessfully.. My 300 watt fixtures are driven at about 85-90% by THE LED Drivers and manually adjusted further (each color) lower by an APEX VDM (they sre about 275w each with VDM running 100%.. All manufactures advertise AT MAX diode capability. Over rating is even worse in the "Grow Industry" as they try to compair 600W of LED against 1000W of HID (HPS, Metal Halide) and claim 1000W.. So yes they try to bs for advertising.. NO THIS IS NOT FIRST CASE OF LED bs ratings, they all do!! Read fine print on box or fixture for actual watts comsumed ("Name Plate"/sticker) with UL rating.. They seem to mix-up lumen and actual wattage saying their equal therefore they confuse for advertising purposes.. Again read fine print on box, fixture, on in paperwork as "actuall watts" are usually listed... BTW Jake, I've had pretty good luck with all my tinkering as you put it.. If you was to place blame, it would be Diode manufacturers not necessarily the light fixture manufacturer... Like buying light bulbs at Home D, says 40watts worth of light but only consumes 34w (T12 4' fluorescent tube), same with LED's.. etc. etc. They have been BS'n us all longer than you've been alive - like that T12 watt saver tube i mentioned, you were still in diapers;)

This is hilarious your just now figuring this out

Test a kessil on a kill a watt.... you might be surprised

Discovered lol us in the grow industry knew about this . LEDS are judged by diodes so 100x 3w diodes is a 300w light even tho they only run at half to 2/3 rating of diode . LED diodes Chips ect are rated for how many watts it takes to burn the diode up . So a 3w diode will burn up at 3w its impossible to run any chip at its rating . Yes it will burn will it make it past a 180 days without burning up 9/10 No it wont . Just say this as im in both hobbies and build LEDs for myself/friends

i would love an AI prime for my tank the cheap light i am using just does not cut it but an AI prime here in australia is 350 dollars for just the light no mount

Boils down to if it has 100 x 3w LEDs and it runs at 200w its still a 300w LED this is a shame . But all LEDs are rated by max power it takes to fry them. RUN any LED at full power u lose efficency and life of the diodes themselves

Cetus has a nicer look and shimmer at the start of the video...if your into that

Ecotech Marine Radion XR30 are massively mislabeled as well. $1,150 per unit gtf outta here lol.

I have them lights 😢

Good investigation Jake. Sounds Like you caught them.

I know this vids 3 years old but everything TMC is utter trash I recently got two TMC next wave 60s and there a pile of crap it honestly upset me and they cost a lot of money to fix there problems and they offered me a couple of bottles of fish food after about a week of trying to get the problem fixed… proper heart broken after it never getting anything TMC again

Their explanation was still not reassuring. Regardless how they spin this, the usable watts are not there. So they are misleading and making false claims.

Meh - this isn't even a concern to me. The bar is - does it grow coral? If the answer is no, then who gives a shit about wattage?

This may cause a lot of issues with English Customers Is The biggest supplier In the country And relationships with TMC This light has been tried and proven in many High end reef shops in the UK

Looks like a sponsored video to me ... It would be fair if you put all lights on your tanks on the watt meter and share the results with us ..

Marketing lies!

Off topic... but have you got any experience with the noopsyche k7 light? They look like a very affordable AI Hydra 26 alternative... People on Reef2Reef seem to like them but I've not seen anyone do a real review who has experience to compare them to AI and Radion alternatives?

To be honest, this "rabbit hole" is not that shocking to me. Calculate for example how much potassium iodide is in a random bottle of I+, that misleading to me if you see how much you pay for a bottle of water with a breadcrumb of powder.

I think the replies you got are appalling and a flat out admission that their packaging is untruthful. Well done exposing this 👍

and all these leds are so overprized its a joke. im looking for a led setup for my 90g mixed reef

You should see the scam of Chinese grow lights... "30 watts" when sometimes it's half that, and of course half of the remaining wattage goes into heat, leaving just 7 real watts for light. And then of course is the danger of these cheap lights... LEDsafety.org