hygger Advanced LED Aquarium Light with Timer, 24/7 Lighting Cycle & DIY Mode, Full Spectrum Fish Tank Light for 48-54 in Freshwater Planted Tank

Our 450-gallon African Cichlid tank desperately needed some new lighting, but after researching the high-end lights on the market, their price points were just plain ridiculous!!! So I started looking for the best lights for the money. I found several reviews on YouTube and other sources about these Hygger 978 24/7 lights. Compared to the high-end lights, these seemed too good to be true, but I decided to give them a try, and I ordered 4 sets of the 36-42" lights for our big tank. (The first number is the length of the light itself, and the 2nd number is how far the stands will extend out to fit your tank) They seem well-built, and although the directions are a little different, they were not difficult to program. There are manual settings that allow you to set specific time periods for the lights to be on, and in whatever color you prefer, and they allow you to adjust the brightness settings as well, but I wanted to try the 24/7 program. That program is pre-set, with the lights coming on at 6:30 AM in a dim, all-orange tint, to simulate sunrise. That gradually brightens up and turns whiter as the day goes on until the tank is fully lit with bright, daylight lighting. In the evening, the lights start dimming and turning bluer in color to simulate sunset, and eventually, an all-blue moonlight. Then the lights go off at 10:30 pm. We've only had the lights for a few days now, but so far we are loving them! The tank has not looked this good in a LONG time. The lights are really bringing out the colors in our fish, and they seem to enjoy the light schedule as well, with some of them becoming much more visible throughout the day than they were with our old lights. So far, the lights have been flawless, but at their very affordable price point, even if they don't last more than a year, I would definitely buy them again as needed. I honestly do not think anyone could go wrong buying these lights for their tank(s). Are their colors as accurate as the $2700 high-end lights I looked at? Probably not, but honestly, unless you had them both set up on tanks, side by side, I doubt that you would really notice! I've been running aquariums continually for over 45 years, and I think these lights just might be the biggest bargain I've ever found! (If this new purchase opinion changes, I'll update this review as needed.)

I had no problems with timer set-up, light intensity, or performance. I found it easy to set-up my lighting preference, which is 10-hours on from 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM. You simply select 10-hour mode and turn timer function on at 9:00 AM on day 1. Every day after, the light comes on gradually at 9:00 and gradually off at 7:00. You can chose any time frame you want. For my purpose of having rare and ornamental goldfish, the brightest intensity is far too bright. I run it at the third intensity setting which is perfect. If you have a reef or marine tank the highest intensity will surely suffice given my experience with a 200 gallon reef and marine tank. You can also chose various light color options such as all red, all green, all blue, etc. Personally I don't see the need for this, but the options are there if you chose. Some reviewers have complained about the clarity of instructions, but I found them to be clear and concise. The light has a low profile so the reflection from tank glass cover is minimal. The adjustability of length is easy and fits my 55-gallon 36-inch tank perfectly. So far, I have no complaints and find this to be one of the best LED tank lights I have used in the last 10 years.

**Update 3: Putting this at the top - I'm at a little over 2 years with my 3 lights and they are all going strong. I love them, my plants grow great, and all my aquariums are doing great. These will be my go-to lights for any future builds.** I'm just getting my setup together, but I've been playing with this light for the last 2 days. I'll update this review with any issues once I get my tank setup and planted. The good: -Bright full spectrum light -Super slim -Lightweight -Stays VERY cool to the touch -24h mode is great, and unlike what I've read about the timer on some other Hygger products it does turn fully off. (I haven't tried the 6/10/12 hour timers yet as I don't plan on using them) The bad: -Directions are pretty confusing, especially when it comes to how the 24hr timers work -I don't love the slide-out legs for mounting, but they do the job -RGB Modes are neat, but probably useless to most -No memory if power is lost On the 24h mode. You can kind of see how it works in the video for the product, but here are some details/info. -The daylight cycle takes approximately 16.5 hours from start to finish. -Day light starts at a dim orange and slowly works up to full bright for the late morning through afternoonish, then starts winding down. -The last ~30mins are blue only LEDs that slowly fade out to off. The 24h button is probably the most confusing part of the directions. It has 8:00 / 10:00 / 12:00 / 15:00 / 18:00 / 22:00 settings. This is for setting where in the light cycle the current time of day is. As an example if I power up the light and want to start the 24h cycle, and its 10:00am I set it to the 10:00 button. If it was 3:00pm I would set it to 15:00, etc. Now the cycle will start at 6am and end at 22:30 (10:30pm). There is a little time math involved if you want to set a different start time, say 7:00 am instead of 6:00am. But this time schedule is perfect for my use. Overall I am very excited to get my setup complete and see how it looks with this light. **UPDATE** This light continues to be awesome! I've had it running for about 3 weeks and my plants are taking off! The "sunrise" is beautiful as well. My one and only complaint so far is that the plastic that covers the LEDs isn't secured in any way and will rattle occasionally from my wavemakers/filter. Should be an easy fix tho. **UPDATE 2** I'm rapidly approaching a year with this light and now have 3 sizes running on 3 different tanks. (10g, 29g tall, 40g breeder) All are working great still. The total light time is a little high (16.5 hours) but none of my tanks are out of control with algea growth. All of my plants are doing great! I'm planning a couple more aquariums this winter and will definitely buy this light for them.

I love Hygger brand anything, and for the price, this light is great! My only issue is that after less than a year of use, the extendable brackets have rusted and cannot no longer be adjusted or extended. The colors are beautiful, and the 24/7 preset lighting is a godsend!

hygger HG-978 Operating Instructions ("translated") I love this product. I got a smaller version for my 10G tank a year ago, and used that on my 20G"tall" tank as well. This larger one does more, and that's great! You have options. The bad news is, the instructions are somewhat difficult to understand. Like many things made in different parts of the world, sometimes the English instructions need some study to figure out what they really mean. It happens, and doesn't make it any less of a great product, IMO. So, after some study and experimentation, I was able to condense the basics of this light. There are three ways to use it. The first is to simply turn it on, select a color (it has a bunch), set the intensity level, and turn it off when you want to. Basically a "manual" light. One feature here... you can select a "Color Changing Loop" when you pick a color, and it will cycle through all the colors like one of those old Christmas tree back lights , if you remember those... Anyway... The second way to use it is to set a Timer. This light has a 6, 10, or 12 hour Timer setting. It will be "ON" for the selected amount of time from the time you set the Timer. There will be a 15-minute ramp up and ramp down in intensity at the beginning and end of the time selected. So, you select the color, the intensity, and the amount of "ON" time you want, starting NOW, and there it is. Using the light this way, I'd use a 12-hour cycle @ 75% intensity and shutting down about an hour or two after sunset, so I'd have to set the timer around 9AM this time of year to do that, and fiddle with it a few times a year to account for day length. Finally, there is a 24/7 preprogrammed setting. You have no control over the color or intensity or anything else other than figuring out the instructions! The instructions have to do with time. With this automatic setting, the goal is to have it finish at 22:30 or 10:30PM, according to the manual. Now, you only need to do this once... but what you need to do is look at the clock on the wall NOW, and select the starting point either closest to what your local time is right now, or one to "fool" the system into finishing earlier or later than 10:30. The time selections are 0800, 1000, 1200, 1500(3PM), 1800(6PM), and 2200(10PM). The idea is that if you are setting this light up and it's around noon, select the 1200 setting and it will now cycle without any further input. Off and into the night light at 10:30, and beginning the dawn routine at 8AM. That's it! I set mine at 0700 and selected the 8AM setting. The lights are running in night mode at 9:30PM rather than 10:30PM. So, you can offset or "fool" the system to shift the cycle around the clock a bit. A couple of things about this setting... It seems to never get brighter when you first set it up. VERY SLOW ramp-up and down. It actually takes an hour or so to ramp up to 100% intensity. Nice, really... but I thought it wasn't doing anything at first. And the same to ramp down. The only issue I may have with this setting is if I get too much green algae. That's my sign in my planted aquarium that there's too much light. There's no control on this setting other than time-shifting. I'd like to be able to set an upper limit on intensity. So, depending on my needs for the plants and balancing the algae issue, I may end up using the timer versus the 24/7 setting. That jury is still out. Excellent product! Now, if only someone made one exactly like this one only with a USB port and completely programmable! ::hint! hint!:: *********** After a week or so of using this light, I've settled on the timer function as my default. I set the timer to start at 9AM and go to 9PM. Because I am always up long before 9AM, the timer mode allows me to turn on the light earlier without disturbing the OFF time of 9PM. Also, before 9PM, I can step down the light so that when I turn it on at 7AM or whatever, it's pretty dim, and then I can go from there until feeding time an hour after lights on. More manual, but I'm a control freak, which I think you have to be a bit to keep fishy friends.

Very nice fit on top of my 20G high working on a polycarbonate underneath to replace the stock lid but I would recommend this product and I really like the 24/7 mode I get to see it wind down at night and the blue light really seems to be nice

This is a 6 month old tank. I waited to do the review intentionally to make sure the product is durable etc. I've grown this tank with no CO2 at all. Only the 36 inch hygger light and fluval soil with 1 inch sand cap. Occasional root tabs as well. I have to trim every 2 weeks or the tank would be completely full of plants. Also, with a ten hour light cycle I have 0 algae issues except occasional hair algae. Ignore the smaller lights, they are new and only used at night. My take-away is that this is the best value, of any brand yet available on Amazon. I haven't tried em all but I've tried a lot of em.

The only brand I will buy pretty much. They work, and work well. The timer on this is great, and easy to set up. I've had this for a while now and no issues. The only thing, is if you have it really close to the water, and water continuously splashes up on it, the side arms will rust. That being said, you don't want your light really close to the water anyways, so most of the time it's not an issue. They are sturdy aquarium lights. The arms are extendable to a point, as noted in the description and overall just a well designed aquarium light that is quality and has good aesthetics.