ATI Straton LED panel light comes to America

Straton, the long-awaited LED light launch by ATI Aquaristik is soon to hit American shores, and it’s sure to make a big splash. Different in form factor and philosophy to many other LEDs, Straton is designed to have a large LED panel, capable of wide, even T5-like light spread across a reef tank, bathing corals in high-quality light from all angles. 

The unit itself is 18.5” square, with a 15.7” square LED panel underneath. What’s amazing however is its height at just half an inch tall, something that’s only possible because it’s done away with active cooling fans in favor of silent, passive cooling which it does by releasing heat across the whole 342 square inches of the fixture's surface area. Remove the fan and you remove the noise, but it’s also one less thing to go wrong, something that has blighted some ATI fan-cooled T5 units in the past. 

230 watts of power

At the business end of the light, Straton smashes through the 200-watt barrier, consuming 230 watts at full power and delivering light via 153 individual LEDs, and seven independently controllable channels. The light panel is populated with UV, Violet, Royal Blue, Blue, White, Cyan, and Red diodes for a combination of PAR, color, and coral growth, and its got a built-in web server for wireless control from anywhere.

It can cover tanks up to 30x30” square on its own so you would only need two on a five feet reef tank, but that blanket of light will no doubt appeal to the SPS lighting junkies who can picture wall to wall units providing perhaps unparalleled even light spread from reef spec LED-only lights. And don’t worry about snap-on diffusers - it has one built-in. 

Straton will appeal to ATI fans, T5 fans who want to finally take the leap to LED, and LED fans who want to make a design statement with their lighting while at the same time banking on what we hope will be some pretty much-guaranteed results.

If I had to single anything out about the Straton its that so far it only comes in Silver when all white and all black options could look awesome and be popular, as not many people rock silver light fixtures on their tanks anymore.

And at this stage, the only way to mount the Straton above your tank is to suspend it on wires, when the most popular mounting method by far is to clamp lights to the rear tank rim instead of having to hang them. But let’s hope ATI launch a good looking light bracket one day to match the sleek, class-leading design of their LED light.

This new unit is definitely one to watch.