Aquarium lighting is a crucial element of freshwater planted and saltwater reef aquariums. This million dollar industry produces some of the most advanced lighting options on the market for hobbyists and professionals.
What if you don’t have a high-tech planted freshwater or saltwater reef aquarium? What if you have an aquarium with no plants, coral, or photosynthetically demanding species?
Your light choices and preferences are important too. That’s why I have written about one of my favorite low-demand freshwater lighting options, The Fluval Aquasky 2.0 LED.
With dozens of aquarium lighting options available, choosing one in your budget with the features you need can be daunting at first. The Fluval Aquasky 2.0 LED has been a solid choice for programmability, quality of light, and budget. The only drawback I’ve found is the light's area of spread can be easily blocked by certain lid configurations.
Features
As a maintenance company, I demand a light with two things, a timer and a dimmer. The timer is crucial as clients often forget to turn the light off and then algae growth becomes an issue. In the same vein, every aquarium is different, and without a dimmer, running a light at 100% intensity for 8 hours can also cause excessive algae growth.
Combined with the fact that no client wants their aquarium on for only a couple hours a day, finding the balance between intensity and duration to create an ideal environment for the aquarium, myself, and the client, involves a timer and a dimmer at the very least. This principle of intensity and duration applies to our home aquariums as well.
The Fluval Aquasky 2.0 LED definitely comes with the basic timer and dimmer capabilities. With the app, you’ll have access to many more features as well.
FluvalSmart Mobile App
The free mobile app Fluval provides for the control of their light makes it super simple to connect and control your light. Using Bluetooth connectivity, you can change the light’s programming manually, set a pre-loaded, automatic schedule, or use the “Pro” feature to individually customize each LED color for intensity, duration, dawn and dusk settings, moonlight options, and much more.
You may have to reconnect your light to the app each time you open the app, but compared to all the other apps I've used from AI to Mobius, FluvalSmart is quick and easy.
24-Hour Light Cycle
Create a natural lighting cycle using the auto or pro mode with the 24-hour light cycle. At the times and duration you program, the Aquasky will ramp up from off or dim moonlight to your chosen intensity, then at the end of the light cycle, ramp back down to off or dim moonlight. This simulates dawn, mid-day, dusk, and night.
The real benefit of this feature is it automatically ramps your intensity between two points. This makes it super simple to program dawn and dusk settings. You don’t have to program a lighting schedule with dozens of points.
Weather Effects
Like many programmable aquarium lights, the Fluval Aquasky 2.0 LED allows you to program weather effects. While it is technically more realistic to have the light dim a little when a cloud passes over, or allow the occasional thunderstorm to pass, I find it to be unnecessary. Unless you’re breeding fish or coral that require certain weather events to spawn, the weather effects are mostly for the consumer’s enjoyment.
Full Color Customization
This feature is something I use a lot. I have a client with two aquariums in the same room. The aquarium on the left has bright orange and red barbs and livebearers. The aquarium on the right has blue neon tetras and discus.
The ability to bring up the red LEDs in the left tank and the blue and green LEDs in the right tank does make a visual difference on how the fish colors reflect the light and pop in their respective aquariums.
I recommend playing with your RGB levels if you have fish in that part of the color spectrum and see the difference. If you're able to notice it, consider this feature in the next light you buy.
Waterproof
No aquarium light would be complete without the ability to resist damage when it inevitably is dropped in the aquarium. With a IP67 rating, the Aquasky will resist splashing and even a temporary submersion underwater.
Light Dispersion and Penetration
The penetration of this light is more than enough for a standard 12-20” tall aquarium to receive plenty of light. They even boast a 120 degree dispersion of light from the unit. This wide illumination is super important on a light that is mounted so close to the tank.
In my experience, the light does lack a little in its dispersion. With tanks deeper than 18” you will need to mount it perfectly in the middle. This can be difficult if your glass top has an opaque acrylic hinge.
This is by no means a deal breaker. Fluval takes into consideration their recommended mounting height when they made the dispersion 120 degrees. However, it is a feature you may run into a problem with if your aquarium has a less than transparent cover.
Fluval Aquasky 2.0 LED Specs
The Fluval Aquasky 2.0 LED ranges from 12W at 15-24” to 35W at 48-60”. Each model includes a number of white and RGB LEDs which are individually controllable within a color temperature range of 3000 - 25000K. Most of the specs are model dependent. Here is a chart that compares them.
Aquasky 2.0 12 W | Aquasky 2.0 18 W | Aquasky 2.0 27 W | Aquasky 2.0 35 W |
15-24" | 24"-36" | 36"-48" | 48"-60" |
36 LEDs | 42 LEDs | 63 LEDs | 84 LEDs |
White (24) - RGB (12) | White (28) - RGB (14) | White (42) - RGB (21) | White (56) - RGB (28) |
800 Lumens | 1250 Lumens | 1850 Lumens | 2400 Lumens |
PAR | PAR | PAR | PAR |
215 @ 3" | 225 @ 3" | 235 @ 3" | 245 @ 3" |
122 @ 6" | 162 @ 6" | 173 @ 6" | 177 @ 6" |
50 @ 12" | 59 @ 12" | 64 @ 12" | 66 @ 12" |
26 @ 18" | 32 @ 18" | 38 @ 18" | 44 @ 18" |
Final Thoughts
The Fluval Aquasky 2.0 LED is a perfect light for your low-intensity freshwater aquarium. I appreciate the easy to use app and simple, yet realistic programming functions, especially at its price point. For a budget friendly, yet capable light, consider this option.
I would not consider the Aquasky 2.0 for low-light planted aquariums. I would choose a light with a different LED spread. While the Aquasky is capable of lighting up your fish and décor, plants photosynthesize at specific wavelengths and plant-specific lights accommodate those needs better than the Aquasky 2.0. If you want to add live plants to your aquarium, Fluval does make a planted aquarium light as well.