In this Atreum Lighting review I am thoroughly test their ARA-6 LED Light Bar Fixture which I think is perfect for a 4×4 footprint in DWC or a 5×5 for soil. The cool thing about this company is they use the same top bin Samsung diodes as HLG but are more competitively priced. I told them I do not do paid reviews but they were confident enough to still send me a light for testing so here is the review.
My friend LED Gardener has also tested their products with favourable results. There are threads on his forum that go into a more techincal analysis (e.g. flux bin, diode selection etc) but for the scope of this review I will just be looking at setup, usability, PPFD map and a real world cannabis growing experiment.
I will be comparing the lights with 240W Alibaba boards which are my absolute favourite grow lights for their value, size and modularity.
Atreum ARA-6 Assembly
The driving force behind the ARA-6 is 6x ARA-41 light bars. The ARA-41 is full-spectrum LED light bar featuring a hybrid of broad-spectrum Samsung LM301B diodes with Cree XP-E2 Deep-Red 660nm supplementation. Each bar runs at a potential 120W. This means that for the ARA-6 with 600 watt 54 volt driver you are running the lights at 83% of the maximum capacity. This helps reduce heat and greatly extends the useful life of the bars. The ARA-4 on the other hand runs at 100% capacity with its 480 watt driver. I think a limitation of this is the fact that Meanwell does not make any drivers above 600W.
The 6 light bars are connected together via the ARA Frame kit, which is approx. 1m (3′ in length). The bars are 1.2m (4′ in length) giving approx dimensions of 3×4 for the assembled frame.
This is the hardware that helps put it all together. It is a pretty simple system. Requires an alan key or a hex head on a drill.
There are three waterproof connectors to assemble. the rest is pretty plug and play.
The lights are wired in parallel so the order in which you connect the LED’s does not matter. You could connect one or all six and it would work the same, unlike with a series based connection.
Having assembled dozens of Alibaba lights I can confidently say these are much higher quality. Atreum put a lot of time into engineering these lights and it shows. Everything fits together perfectly with no exposed wires.
Hanging Height and PPFD
Below are the three PPFD maps that the manufacturer provides. Based on this I was able to surmise that 24″ distance is good for aggressive vegetative growth, 18″ should be good for flowering and 12″ for co2 supplemented flowering.
Compared to a typical 240W panel the ARA can be hung about 8-12″ closer to the plant because of the more even light distribution.
If you have read my article on using a Lux Meter to Measure Grow lighting you will have seen my chart for converting PPFD to Lux.
| Plant Stage | PPFD | Lux |
| Seedlings, Clones (18 hour) | Under 100 PPFD | 10,000 |
| Mild Vegetative (18 hour) | 100 PPFD – 500 PPFD | 10,000 – 35,000 |
| Agressive Vegetative (18 hour) | 400 PPFD to 600 PPFD | 28,000 – 42,000 |
| Flower (12 hour) | 500 PPFD to 900 PPFD | 34,500 – 62,000 |
| Flower w/ CO2 (12 hour) | 700 PPFD to 1500 PPFD | 48,000 – 100k + |
The reason for converting from PPFD to the less accurate Lux is that PPFD meters are expensive (a proper quantum sensor can cost over a thousand dollars). A Lux meter (which measure lumens) is cheap and can be used in place of a PPFD meter when measuring the output of full spectrum LED boards. It is not 100% accurate as the conversion is an approximation but it is more than enough for planning out your grow room light spacing and deciding how high to hang your lights.
I was expecting the ARA-6 to have more even light distribution. What I was not expecting was that the ARA-6 actually has higher LUX even in the middle of the canopy at the same wattage. This means you are getting more PPFD for your dollar!
The ARA covers the top right quadrant of this Lux map.
Atreum vs Alibaba LED Panels
If you’re browsing this website there is a high likelihood you have seen, or been brought here by, my Alibaba LED buying guide.
A large part of this review is to test real world results for growing cannabis under an Atreum light vs Alibaba panels.
My room 9’x9′ room is setup with 7x 240W Alibaba panels and 1x Atreum ARA-6 strip assembly.
Stay tuned for updates on the grow throughout 2021. I will be trying a few cultivars with this new setup and keeping you guys posted as I grow.
So far the results are very promising and I may switch the entire room over to LED bars instead of LED panels by 2021.
