Interview of Ofir, Orphek’s CEO

Accueil » Interviews » Interview of Ofir, Orphek’s CEO

Posté le 21 juin 2017 par Axel S.

We are honored to get Ofir’s interview. He is Orphek’s CEO and it is always interesting to discover a brand « from the inside » from the beginning to how far they get by now.

1/ Could you introduce yourself and what is your professional experience?

Hi! My name is Ofir and I am the co-founder and CEO of our company.

Ofir and his smartphone, useful tool to set up your Orphek Lighting.

2/ What is your experience in fish keeping?

My Love for fish and corals comes from my childhood because I grew up and always lived by the sea. Later, I got my scuba diving certification and I got an opportunity to do some professional archeological recovery diving in Israel and that is when I got in touch closely with marine creatures. I moved to Brazil in 2004 and fell in love for the Amazonian Discus fish. My first tank was dedicated to these unique creatures. Soon we decided to add also a reef tank to our home and that is how our interest in LED Lighting systems began.

3/ How did you get the idea, the wish to create your own business, Orphek?

While trying to simulate nature in a captive environment as closely as possible in our tanks at home, and considering efficiency, we were not satisfied with the light solutions on the market at the time. So we decided to use our experience as hobbyists, and team up with marine biologists and engineers to develop a product of our own.

From the beginning our main concern was to find a solution that would not only answer to aquarists’ needs, but would also have an exquisite design, an outstanding performance and high quality components. Since then, all our products have proven themselves to be very successful over planted, SPS reef and public aquariums, and quickly gained respect and recognition as a leader in LED lighting technology and innovation. Besides being aquarists, we share a passion for design, and one of our dissatisfactions with the products that were available in the market was exactly their design. We really never understood why aquarium lights had to look so unappealing.

When we started to develop our first product, we opted for LEDs not only for their efficiency, but also because they allow extraordinary design flexibility in color changing and in product development. Notably promising, soon we realized that LED lighting illumination renders spectacular solutions where the integration of light sources, conceptual design and architectural elements are also desired. We wanted to offer a solution that would have an advanced contemporary design.

Coral is one of the explanation of Orphek’s foundation.

4/ Could you introduce briefly your range of products dedicated to our reef tanks and tanks generally?

Yes sure. We are always interested in showing our products!

The Amazonas 500 watt LED is a solution developed mainly for commercial installations, public aquariums, zoos or very deep aquariums where you have SPS corals growing at 15m (20 ft) deep. What we are offering to our clients is a solution that with easy maintenance & washable; for both Indoor/outdoor use, available in many Kelvin temperatures and custom spectrums and with:

Three watt high tech flip-chip LEDs run at a cool two watts
240 flip-chip LEDs – 120 LEDs per channel
3 Aluminum Reflection Cups: 15/36/60 degrees
3 Acrylic Lens Options: 5/12/24/36/60 degrees

You won’t find any LED Lighting solution in the market today that can compete with this product. Because the Amazonas 500 can deliver significant light penetration and plenty of coverage, which allows for direct 1 to 1 replacement for large older technology inefficient 1,000watt lighting systems, plus all the features it offers.

Our P300 and our P300 Plus is now coming with the same spectrum offered by the V4, bringing built-in wireless control allowing you to easily program, control, and monitor your light(s) from your cell phone or tablet, any time and any place you are in the world, where internet access is available – Internet of Things or IoT. This pendant offers:

16 new types of custom made dual core LEDs in the nanometer range from 380nm to 850nm.
Renders most natural appearance to the tank form 10K to 50K.
Provides enough RED and IR LEDs needed.
Contains Full dimming capacity in all channels, 0-100% with progressive dimming.
Provides IoT technology & Free apps available (App Store & Google play).
Gives the ability to control and program 200+ individual units!
Multiple lens options – 5/10/15/45/60/90/120 degree lens.

It is an incredible solution for SPS corals at 5m deep or less.

Our Atlantik V4 is the best product Orphek has produced today. This solution offers:

16 new types of custom made dual core LEDs in the nanometer range from 380nm to 850nm.
Renders most natural appearance to the tank form 10K to 50K
Provides enough RED and IR LEDs needed
Contains Full dimming capacity in all channels, 0-100% with progressive dimming.
Provides IoT technology & Free apps available (App Store & Google play)
Gives the ability to control and program 200+ individual units!
Provides the best: PAR/PUR per watt; Highest Spectrum output; and Highest efficiency power supply.

What else Orphek is offering you that others are not?

A LED light that is made of full body acrylic. Our light is not only solid and durable, but also beautiful to display.
A LED light that has a length of 24.21” (615mm), a width of 9.37” (238mm) and a height of 2.11” (53.6mm) .
A LED light that comes not with any driver, but with Mean Well driver (model HLG-240H-48A) – we give you what the market has best to offer!
A LED light that comes with a customized plug for your region.
A LED light that comes with a hanging kit with no extra costs.
A LED fixture providing the lowest consumption Euro X watt.

The Atlantik V4 Compact is, as the name speaks for itself, a compact version of our Atlantik V4. Here you have

We have other pendants, such as the PR72 and NR12.

The PR 72 Reef LED Pendant is designed to aid hobbyists in growing beautiful corals in medium sized aquariums or larger systems when multiple units are used, and coral fragment tanks without relying on energy wasting metal halide or low PAR florescent tubes.

Highest PAR per watt.
36 high power LEDs tuned to the PUR spectrum to provide excellent coral and clam growth.
Maximizes natural colors of corals and clams.
Mean Well dimmable driver for improved efficiency and longevity.
UV and wide spectrum red, white and blue LEDs duplicate the PUR spectrum and giving a 16,000K -18,000K appearance.
Replaces energy wasting incandescent, florescent, and metal halide lighting.
Low energy use, typically 30% – 50% less than other lighting technology
Aluminum finned heat sink effectively dissipates heat from the LEDs ensuring long life of the electronic

By developing the NR12 Reef LED Pendant Orphek has made refugiums and small or shallow tanks easy to light. The lamp screws into a common E27/28 lamp socket and provides high PAR in a 30cm x 30cm area when hung 30cm above the water surface. It was designed to be used with nano aquariums and refugiums alike and to provide the required PAR need to grow corals or macro algae (refugiums). Twelve, one watt Orphek LEDs are used in the NR12. Also it is a versatile option because the NR12 can be ordered with your choice of LEDs or Kelvin temperature, which makes it highly suitable for both freshwater planted nano tanks. The NR12 can also be used for lighting shallow coral frag tanks in stores or in the hobbyist’s fish room. And more! The NR12’s spectrum closely matches the Atlantik’s spectrum and also features one Orphek special UV LED, which is needed for chlorophyll A.

Our Kaspian features today:

LED matrix :120pcs of 3watt LEDs chip operates at 120 watts for efficiency and longevity.
Mix LEDs chip.
Available with none dimming or dimming Mean Well LED driver.
Integrates with Neptune Apex controller.
High efficiency Mean Well fan-less power supply.
Large aluminum finned heat sink for superior heat dispersion.
Highest PAR/PUR per watt than any other LED reef pendant on the market.
Ideal Spectrum for coral growth, color and health.
4 Different types of LEDs used.
Lens options available to suit any application.
Custom Kelvin temperatures available.

At question 9 you asked about incoming projects. I will jump to it now to say that we are working on this solution to bring a new LED chip. Probably we will introduce the V4 spectrum to the NR12 and the PR72.

For home tanks where there is a high amount of SPS corals I personally prefer to install the Atlantik V4 over it because its coverage is perfect so corals get a equal amount of spread in the entire tank. For bigger tanks where you cannot that this coverage the pendant is a better solution.That is why Orphek offers both solutions ;-). The P300 V4 Plus, for example, offers you full control, including progressive dimming. The difference from the Kaspian is that the Kaspian offers more power. Some people like the strong shimmering effect, some don’t. I personally find less shimmering easier on the eyes. That is my choice for my home tank. But for deep aquariums it gives a cool “sun” effect look from the top.

5/ Could you talk about the manufacturing by Orphek, especially concerning environmental respect?

Loving Nature as we do and being conscious about the environment, we only develop products with significant positive impact in everyone’s life. By simply producing an efficient LED lighting solution Orphek is helping to reduce a great excess carbon dioxide, sulfur oxide and nuclear waste emissions that are currently being released into the atmosphere every day, leading to a cleaner world and one that will last much longer.

Our environmentally friendly lighting solutions produce no radiant heat, and they will not raise the aquarium temperature more than two degrees Celsius above the room temperature! Soon you will find out that by using Orphek LED lighting products, you will achieve more color and growth, with less cooling and electricity than metal halides or any other traditional form of lighting.

At Orphek we almost don’t produce any paper waste. We try to follow a 0% paper use. We try to be the most eco-friendly we can, which it is a challenge for sure!

As per living creatures, Orphek is very concern about the living creatures of Public aquariums. In PA’s the maintenance of the welfare of the animals in captive environments.

The conservation and adaptation of animals are more complex due to:

– Introduction of hands-on and other interactive programs

– Number and types of biomes increased

– Introduction of “exotic” and rare animals to beat competition.

Understanding these challenges Orphek has been researching and developing customized products only Public Aquariums to provide a healthier and more attractive ambience:

A wide range of organisms kept in public aquaria comes from different types of habitat and different geographic zones. Our solutions not only help Public Aquariums to create a more natural, more easy-to-adapt and healthier environment to any kind of installation and animals, but it also help Public Aquariums to explore the beauty that a proper atmosphere can bring to the exhibition. Understanding each peculiarity of these habitats, Orphek helps Public Aquariums to make the correct choice of lightening, installation, and spectrum that will make all the difference for both visitors and species.

As to home aquariums, our programmable solutions have always an acclimation mode so corals won’t feel a hard impact once the lights are installed.

The starting point of our new Orphek product – The Atlantik V4 – started with the idea of developing a new LED Lighting solution that would mimic Nature by providing spectrums that are present in a natural environment.

Sun light provides a range of wavelengths and different lengths of light waves do not penetrate through the water equally. Red light is the first to be filtered out and can only penetrate a short distance. If you look at a coral reef in Nature you will notice that shallow reef corals live in warm waters.

The idea was to add to the Atlantik V4 enough infrared color to satisfy coral of all habitats. This new development isn’t something that happened overnight. A year of testing and experimenting went into this project before we were convinced that we came up with the ultimate spectrum for growing coral and the added benefit of viewing the coral with a more natural look. Orphek’s main concern will always be the well being of the living creatures of our client’s tank, therefore we are always looking forward improving our products to serve this cause.

6/ Is it hard to deal with technological advance, manufacturing cost and environmental concerns such as energy consumption, choice of material and recycling?

To tell the truth, the main challenge is to educate people in general to try to be eco-friendly. For example, Orphek offers all its manuals of products in our website as link in order not to produce paper waste or printing (to follow our green policies). Even so clients are still demanding printed manuals, which it is a pity. We need to change this mentally.

7/ We see on the fish keeping market 2 major types of Led fixture. The first one are made of one, 2 or 4 powerful and multicolor multichip Led modules, the second one are made of lots of single 3 or 5 W Led, spread on all the fixture’s surface. What is your thought on the both type? What is according to you the best for the visual rendering and the corals’ health?

Both solutions are good. It depends on the application.

Spotlight or large fixture, it is a matter of tank!

8/ Led lighting market is full of competition. What makes Orphek Led fixtures unique?

A8 years ago Orphek set the new standard for LED Lighting products for reef aquariums by developing emitters providing the best PAR/Watt, offering solutions with the highest PAR output. By launching groundbreaking technologies our company gained respect and recognition as a leader in Aquarium lighting technology and innovation for reef aquariums lights.

CHECK OUR GROUNDBREAKING INNOVATIONS!

We are the first company to introduce Internet of Things (IoT) technology.
First company to develop solutions to deliver light spectrum for depths over 15 meters.
First company to develop UV/violet LEDs in reef aquariums.
First company that provides a wide spectrum red without using normal 660nm and 640nm LEDs.
First company making its own wide spectrum blue LEDs.
First and only company to make its own proprietary White UV LEDs.
First company to use high Kelvin white LEDs.
First company to make 100-watt matrix multicolor LED chips and first to have the technology to customize the chip to any Kelvin temperature desired.

What is also unique about our company is that we develop a close relationship with our clients. We exchange experiences, we learn from their feedbacks and we customize our products to satisfy their needs. We really listen to their opinion!

Now I want to talk a bit about the Atlantik V4 and why it is the best product Orphek has produced today:

16 new types of custom made dual core LEDs in the nanometer range from 380nm to 850nm.
Renders most natural appearance to the tank form 10K to 50K
Provides enough RED and IR LEDs needed
Contains Full dimming capacity in all channels, 0-100% with progressive dimming.
Provides IoT technology & Free apps available (App Store & Google play)
Gives the ability to control and program 200+ individual units!

In terms of offering what others are not, Orphek offers:

A LED light that is made of full body acrylic. Our light is not only solid and durable, but also beautiful to display.
A LED light that has a length of 24.21” (615mm), a width of 9.37” (238mm) and a height of 2.11” (53.6mm) .
A LED light that comes not with any driver, but with Mean Well driver (model HLG-240H-48A) – we give you what the market has best to offer!
A LED light that comes with a customized plug for your region.
A LED light that comes with a hanging kit with no extra costs.

9/ What are your incoming projects?

We have some project for Public Aquariums all over the world in development – but at this point they are confidential. You will know about them once we get their ok to publish the images. As to new product developments – we are a company in constant growth and development, but we cannot disclose them for the moment. All we can say is that Orphek is about to take a total different turn…just wait to see!