# LED vs T5HO



## tylerv (Jul 11, 2011)

Looking to start a planted tank.
I have a 30 gallon tank it's 30" wide 18" high and 12" deep

Looking for a light that would be good for low to mid light plants.

What works better LED or T5HO. The guy at my LFS was trying to sell me the MarineLand Double Bright LED for $120 on sale regular $180. I only have about a 120 to spend on a light so what would you recommend?


Thanks!


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## Alkatraz (Jul 20, 2012)

Will you be going high tech? Pressurized co2, ei dosing, carpet plants, etc.

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## Diztrbd1 (Apr 21, 2010)

For a planted tank I would personally go with the T5. Most of what I have read about LEDs is only good for fish, not so much good plant growth. Though since I have last read up on them , that has probably changed lol No expert on that, just my pref at the moment. IPU and Canadian both carry reasonably priced T5HO fixtures. http://www.bcaquaria.com/forum/tank-journals-16/my-33-gal-set-up-9-3-a-14399/ actually did pretty well with just a normal output T5 fixture and a lil DIY CO2.


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## tylerv (Jul 11, 2011)

No won't be high tech, no co2 
Just fertilizers with a good substrate


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## Mykiss (Apr 22, 2010)

We have the Beamswork LED lights available that will fit your tank. Alternatively I'll be getting some dual bulb HOT5 fixtures that will fit your tank as well. Let me know if you're interested


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## tylerv (Jul 11, 2011)

Do you know what fixture and the cost of them?


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## jobber (May 14, 2010)

Check their equipment price list below.

CANADIAN AQUATICS


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## neven (May 15, 2010)

LED fixtures are fine for planted tanks, plus you save money over the years on bulb changes.

I equate the arguement to the same mindset of certain people claiming you can only grow plants good with geismen bulbs, anything else doesn't work well. Which is just false, one is just tuned better for planted tank, but the difference is preference only, nothing else.

Now it is true that the most basic models of LED fixtures are horrible for planted tanks, because they are geared towards a fish only tank, but that is where the Double brights come in, they will be fine. If you are curious i think mykiss even has one running on a tank for an example (if he still does). Look at it this way, i had an LED fixture on a tank that was too much light to grow corals and was bleaching anything i put at mid level. If they can grow coral, they can definately grow plants. Now for High depth tanks, you do run into issues with lighting with your cheaper LED fixtures, but that can be fixed through optics with other brands where you can choose (cost more money).


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## Rastapus (Apr 21, 2010)

This is the question of the year I think. A quality LED fixture is big money, CREE Led is the way to go but a lot of LED is required to properly grow plants. IMO the return on investment will be a number of years before the benefits are achieved. T5 bulbs are so cheap now, speaking for IPU prices that I dont see how this is a financial hurdle. You can spend around $600 to get proper LED for say a 50 gallon, you can buy a quad t5 for a fraction of that cost and the power draw is VERY low. At roughly $15 a bulb its going to take a lot of time before any savings are a reality. The other draw back to LED is flexibility in bulb spectrum. With T5 you can change your bulb spread anytime, LED, stuck. Thats my 2.5 cents.
In addition there are many manufacturers with LED fixtures focussed on price, not quality, be cautious of that.


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## Tarobot (Jun 27, 2010)

personally, the LEDs from canadianaquatics works fine for me. I run lowtech lowlight plants, amazon swords, crypts, fern with ADA substrate for nutrience. I have used t5ho before but for an easy maintenance person like me it caused way too much trouble. hair algae got out of control so i had to add co2 to support plant growth, but then they grew too fast and i had to trim fairly often. of course you can always control the t5ho by raising them higher away from the tank but i dont like to hang stuff. IPU is right in the lack of flexibility but if thats only an issue if you dont know what you want.


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## pdoutaz (May 13, 2010)

I run the marineland double bright on my 90G and successfully grow low and medium light plants.


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## Algae Beater (Apr 21, 2010)

LEDs work VERY well for plants providing you have enough intensity which you will not get with cheaper fixtures as they use 1 / 2 watt emitters which are more efficent, but only suitable for low / mid light plants. 

I currently am running 3 planted tanks all of which are EI dosed/ high light tanks with various forms of LED fixtures ALL using 3 watt or better emitters. 

LEDs are higher investments up front but a huge savings on bulb replacement and operating cost. 

they are the future, period.


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## neven (May 15, 2010)

I also find 1W LEDs to do fine with standard aquarium depths. What a lot of people dont realise that if you really want high light plants, you generally have co2. Co2 with an LED light fixture, even though not at the "High light" par ranges in the more economical fixtures, will still grow almost all high light plants, provided they hit the medium light PAR at substrate. CO2 Lets you utilize less light more efficiently, people always forget that


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## tylerv (Jul 11, 2011)

Wow lots to think about.

If I understand it's lots of personal choice etc. With the LED needing at least 1 Watt Leds, and give's less flexibility in terms of type of light output ie the kelvin temperature and the T5HO with more flexibility. 

But both should do the job right? with perhaps quicker growth with the T5 and along with that perhaps more algae growth?


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## Algae Beater (Apr 21, 2010)

LEDs produce more lumens and PAR per watt than T5s, hence the greater efficiency. also consider that LEDs use DC power, and therefore has no duty cycle as with all AC powered lights (all fluorescent, metal halides etc) so for unit time LEDs have a greater output. 

without getting too technical LEDs are cheaper to run, with a crisper, cleaner, more penetrating light than fluorescent bulbs can offer.


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## tylerv (Jul 11, 2011)

Anybody know of a difference between the Marine Land Double Bright LED and the Beamswork LED?


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## neven (May 15, 2010)

Price mainly. I have a hunch the beams work runs a bit hotter but can't confirm

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## Foxtail (Mar 14, 2012)

I think that if you are used to the flexibility and overall brightness of tek or higher output t5 lighting you will not be satisfied with a basic double bright led. On the other hand, if you are used to a basic single strip t8, you will probably be thrilled with a double bright. To grow high requirements plants or corals you would need to go big money on led lighting. There are a few companies that are making some pretty high tech led lights for a bit less but they are new, and still not very affordable. 

On a side note, I just ordered a 48" marineland double bright from the states for $150 brand new. I'll let ya know how it works. At the moment I am just running a 48" coralife dual bulb pc light. 

Sent via the Shining.


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## 2wheelsx2 (Apr 21, 2010)

I have had 4 types of LED lighting (main lighting...I also have all kinds of LED moonlights). AquaRay, Panorama LED FW modules, Marineland Double Brights (all sold off and replaced by the previous 2), and a Beamswork FW.

I run an AquaRay mini tile in my ADA cube that is CO2 injected and it's actually more like than I wanted, even with the light 6" above the water. I run 3x Panorama and 2x AquaRay GroBeam 500's on my CO2 injected 125 gallon and grow low lights plants no problem (I use the plants more for nutrient management than it being a pure planted tank). I run a Beamswork FW 24" on a 20 gallon pleco growout tank and grow low light plants with no CO2. My other 2 tanks are T5HO or T8 with no CO2. They all grow plants. But I can tell you the AquaRay mini tile grows the most algae as it's the highest light because I have to actively juggle the CO2 injection rate vs. the plant mass because of the small size of the tank and the explosive growth.

As for the Reefbright Beamswork vs. Doublebright Marinlands, the Beamswork is way brighter and bluer. The Marineland is yellower and dimmer and perfect for growing low light plants like Java Fern, Swords and Anubias. You will likely not be able to grow any carpets plants with it as the growth would be so slow that any disturbance would mess up the growth.


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## Foxtail (Mar 14, 2012)

Marineland now has a single bright, double bright and a reef bright. I am guessing the beamworks and marinelands are very similar in output.

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## 2wheelsx2 (Apr 21, 2010)

Neither of them are good for high light setups IMO as the spacing of the LEDs and the spread leave gaps. The dedicated mounted LED modules work much better and are cheaper.


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## Foxtail (Mar 14, 2012)

Agreed, I was just saying marineland has a reefbrite model as well... On another note, I was just in home depot and noticed there is a very large selection of led screw in bulbs available now. Some flood light models up to 18 watts using cree leds. Now the color wavelength is probably way off but it did peak my interest.

Sent via the Shining.


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## 2wheelsx2 (Apr 21, 2010)

Foxtail said:


> Agreed, I was just saying marineland has a reefbrite model as well... On another note, I was just in home depot and noticed there is a very large selection of led screw in bulbs available now. Some flood light models up to 18 watts using cree leds. Now the color wavelength is probably way off but it did peak my interest.


Right. I think Marineland is also discontinuing the Double and Single Brites and only doing the Reefbrights, which I think is a mistake for most fishkeepers as it'll be too much light for most tanks if not managed well, but then T5HO's have the same problem.

The screw in LED's will have either very blue or very yellow lighting which will not give you the daylight look but will grow plants just fine. There are a lot of European keepers on planetcatfish using those for their tanks.


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## Foxtail (Mar 14, 2012)

Now it has me thinking. The bulbs I was looking at had more of a yellow look. Now, if you set a couple of those up and added a couple red and a couple blue single leds it might give a pretty good daylight look... The bulbs themselves are not cheap but you get an instant bc hydro rebate so they are all 20% off. 

Sent via the Shining.


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## neven (May 15, 2010)

foxtail, theres a large crowd of reefers who now use the gu10 socket bulbs for reefing. many manufactures use cree/epilstar (think they merged or something) in their bulbs but you cannot trust the wattage advertised due to the packaging being horrible for heat so they must run them at a lower wattage

I am actually building a fixture with this style and found a bulb factory who agreed to make me them in whatever config i want as long as i buy in lots of 15, its around $70 a lot. Considering i will only need around 15 currently to light a 20 G for SPS, its fairly cheap and can be custom configed with any bulbs i want. I will be ordering 2 lots currently. I'll start a thread about my build in planning rather than hijack.


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## 2wheelsx2 (Apr 21, 2010)

That's cheap Neven. Do they do other LED bulbs too? I'm looking to replace my compact fluorescent and halogen floods around the house and probably 25 of 2 different types, but the regular screw in socket types.


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## Foxtail (Mar 14, 2012)

I will be watching your build closely neven..... Maybe if it turns out well we could work on a group buy as that is very cheap. 

Sent via the Shining.


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## tylerv (Jul 11, 2011)

What are the dedicated mounted LED modules? and where would one find them?



2wheelsx2 said:


> Neither of them are good for high light setups IMO as the spacing of the LEDs and the spread leave gaps. The dedicated mounted LED modules work much better and are cheaper.


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## 2wheelsx2 (Apr 21, 2010)

tylerv said:


> What are the dedicated mounted LED modules? and where would one find them?


I got my AquaRay modules at J&L: Aqua Ray LED Lighting Fixtures
They also sell AI and Vertex but those are pricey.

The other ones I use are the Panorama Freshwater Modules and I got them from here: Panorama Module Freshwater LED Kit - Modular LED.ca
I am using the 8000K ones as they didn't have enough of the 6500K ones.

Oh I say dedicated, because they are aimed at growing plants in FW aquaria (the right spectrum for colours), plus they are designed to be mounted in some fashion and not just sit on the tank.


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## aQ.LED (Nov 13, 2012)

I just want to add to the spectrum about LED. In the old days, Spectrum of LED is very limited. However, the new generation of LED is the same as T5, you can add different colour to LED to match any spectrum that can provide by T5HO. IMO, if people can use LED in green house to grow regular plants, I am sure it would be some how work for aquatic plants. Go Search around and you will find many LED grow lights in market, I am sure all those would work fine for aquatic plants just would look really red/orange. I think for a smaller tank, like 8gallon to maybe 20 gallon, using a T5HO is fine and would do a fine job because most fixture manufacturer doesn't make their high output LED fixtures for these smaller lights and If you try to pull one of those larger lights to compare the price with a single or double strip T5, the differences is going to be huge for sure. I think if you are going to compare the cost for smaller tank, you should use something rather similar, such as a PAR38 bulb, where it can easily add more spectrum in the LEDs to make the right spectrum just like T5 and it cost from range of $50 to $90(depend on brand of the LED chips and if needed any dimming options). You don't have to use CREE, for smaller tank, there are many other options such as by US company ES Luxeon (which is even better than CREE),Bridgelux, SEMILEDS or OSRAM from Germany or even some cheaper brand such as EPISTAR,EVERLIGHT and EPILEDs from Taiwan. All these LED chips are capable provide the right spectrum and enough Lumens for plant growth. The main differences is a 1x3w CREE might equal to 1 and half x of bridgelux's lumen and PAR.So in another word, the CREE chip save more energy than bridgelux or any other chip except ES luxeon.

For larger tank, you can't just use 1 or 2 strip of T5HO, most people got at least 4 on their tank. So let's say you will need to replace the bulb every 12 months, and base on some information I see here $15 per bulb? ( I am sure that is depend on the size of the bulb also)The total will be about $60 every 12 months and the fixture itself is about $150-$200 brand new? So the first year would cost you about $210 to $260 just base on that. Base on a 24" T5HO, with 4x39W bulbs, the total lumens is about 11000 to 12000? about 3k to 3.5k each. I am sure I can get to almost 10000K lumens for a 24 inch fixture with just about $300 which is not that far from the $260. So it really just take about a year or so to get all the initial cost back, not to mention the added benefit, such as low heat and low electric bill.


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## Fish rookie (May 21, 2012)

Diztrbd1 said:


> For a planted tank I would personally go with the T5. Most of what I have read about LEDs is only good for fish, not so much good plant growth. Though since I have last read up on them , that has probably changed lol No expert on that, just my pref at the moment. IPU and Canadian both carry reasonably priced T5HO fixtures. http://www.bcaquaria.com/forum/tank-journals-16/my-33-gal-set-up-9-3-a-14399/ actually did pretty well with just a normal output T5 fixture and a lil DIY CO2.


LED is big for planted tank. ADA has since come out with a new LED light for a while now, it looks very sleek but the price is also very high.LOL


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