# Advice needed: LED lighting.



## TomC (Apr 21, 2010)

I have a standard 33 gallon planted tank. It was fitted with 2 T-5 strips, but the ballast blew, and I am tired of replacing bulbs.

J&L has a LED fixture that has 12 x 1W bulbs, and gives out 600 lumens. (Edit: The listing says this one actually gives 1200 lumens. My mistake.) Is this enough to provide light to a 33 gal. with medium light plants?

Here is the listing: Marineland Double Bright LED Light Fixture (36-48 Inch)

May 5: In the end, I used a 600 lumen LED. After a few weeks, it seems to be maintaing my low light tank just fine.


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## charles (Apr 21, 2010)

if that is not enough, we have a 36" 42 1w HQ LED in total of 2600 lumen for $150.


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## shaobo (Apr 21, 2010)

Not an expert, but I have seen those Marineland Double Bright fixture in action, not very impressive at all.


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## Diztrbd1 (Apr 21, 2010)

I have heard they are pretty weak myself. For the price of the ones Charles has I would go with them if any. Personally I think the T5 are better for the plants, but I am no expert either.


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## charles (Apr 21, 2010)

shaobo said:


> Not an expert, but I have seen those Marineland Double Bright fixture in action, not very impressive at all.


Ed, come by and check out our reef bright and let me know what you think


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## gklaw (May 31, 2010)

I have to vote for Charle's 2600 lumen for $150 and you don't have to worry about changing bulbs for a very long time.


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## TomC (Apr 21, 2010)

gklaw said:


> I have to vote for Charle's 2600 lumen for $150 and you don't have to worry about changing bulbs for a very long time.


 I would vote for that one too, but my wallet disagrees. My budget is very limited, so this is a major purchase for me. But, its either pay the $150 for this one, or spend money for a ballast replacement and two bulbs. The ballast/bulbs costs less, but the LED means no more shelling out for replacement bulbs.

Does anyone know how 2600 LED lumens compares to flourescent in wattage? Would this make my 33 gallon a high, medium, or low light tank?

How reliable are these LED units? What are the chances it will break down?


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## alexbn024 (Mar 9, 2012)

If you can find a data sheet on LEDs used in that fixture you can calculate PAR value of it (One Way to Design a Planted Tank LED Light). You need about 60 µmol/sec/m2 (or µEinsteins/sec/m2) at substrate level and the guide I linked explains how to calculate that.

I am using Aquaray mini LED400, which generates 30 µEinsteins/sec/m2 at 40cm without water, it is doing really good job in my 5G. There are rumors that the current led technology loses about 40% after 6 months, but I can't find any credible source for that. T5 probably is a verified and reliable technology.


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## TomC (Apr 21, 2010)

It's all very confusing. I am reluctant to spend $150 without being sure of a long term solution.

The unit I have now was retrofitted with 2 T-5 tubes by the guy at Fishworld (Nick?), which is no longer in business. This is the 2nd time one ballast has blown. Does anyone else sell an affordable ballast kit for replacing this?

I will try and post a picture tonight.


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## jeremoose (Aug 10, 2011)

I've got this light: Odyssea T5 Aquarium Lighting 
It's a really solid unit but it's over a high-tech, pressurized co2 setup so it may be too much light for you, if that's the case go with: Odyssea T5 Aquarium Lighting

I have 2 different Odyssea T5HO units and they're fantastic (I also have a Hagen Glo setup and the Odyssea's are just as good and are even better if you factor price in). You won't be disappointed


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## Rastapus (Apr 21, 2010)

OK, I have yet to comment on LED lighting up until now. IMO, the average light output of a typical LED on the market is much weaker then fluorescent HO. The biggest appeal to LED is the power consumption and the fact that bulbs can go many years without replacement. This is very appealing to hobbyists in Europe and US with high power costs. For us in Canada I don't see the big difference. CREE LED are the best in the industry, of course getting a fixture with CREE lights is not a cheap option. I have seen many aquariums with LED and it is very rare that I have been impressed and the ones that impress are usually displaying multiple fixtures. China is producing a huge amount of LED lights for the aquarium trade, unfortunately the needs of the animals does not seem to be addressed in these fixtures that I have seen. I have been holding off on the Aqua Nova LED strips for this reason. I know many hobbyists have been experimenting on BCA with various fixtures. 
IMO the suitable LED fixtures that will compare to HO T5 output or better are VERY expensive and will take many years to see the financial benefit. Too many companies are jumping on the LED band wagon which happens with any new product.

In addition, T5 bulbs have come way down in price the last few years and at roughly $15 a bulb or better, going to be tough to see a big financial difference. Not to mention the ability to change the spectrum of the bulbs chosen where as with LED, you are kind of stuck.
Just my 2 cents.


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## CRS Fan (Apr 21, 2010)

Tom.

As long as you suspend the Beamswork LED's (the Canadian Aquatics reefbrite fixtures use 1 W CREE bulbs) above your tank about 6 inches, You should get enough spread with the LED fixture. Although I have heard that you get more focus and less even spread with the LED's. With that being said, I have yet to take the leap into LED fixtures for my planted tanks. I think you will be fine with the 12 inch width of a 33 gallon either way.

JMHO,

Stuart


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## TomC (Apr 21, 2010)

I decided to go with the Odyssea T-5s. Canadian Aquatics has them for $65, which beats the price of LEDs.


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## verkion (Apr 27, 2011)

How open are you making your own? Its easy and fairly cheap to make an LED lighting system now with the emitter plates available now. My complete overkill of a setup puts out between 7000 and 8000 lumens into a 29G tank and cost roughly 200. You can probably get away with 2x20W emitter plates which is $40 with drivers being an additional $20. It also turns out that Pentium 3 and 4 heatsinks are perfect for them and they can be scrounged up for a dime a dozen now.


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## waynestractor (Nov 9, 2011)

I bought a Marineland Reef capable 48" for my hi tech heavily planted tank and am very impressed. It is sitting right on my 55g and has good spread, plants are growing like crazy! It is on a timer so I added some blue led strip lights also on a timer so I can still view after the main lights go out. Not cheap but very happy with led's.


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## The Guy (Nov 26, 2010)

I have one the Beams work 36-48 Reef bright fixtures and it's very good I would recommend them. IMO they are better than marinelands unit.


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## miyabi-aqua (May 20, 2011)

TomC said:


> I would vote for that one too, but my wallet disagrees. My budget is very limited, so this is a major purchase for me. But, its either pay the $150 for this one, or spend money for a ballast replacement and two bulbs. The ballast/bulbs costs less, but the LED means no more shelling out for replacement bulbs.
> 
> Does anyone know how 2600 LED lumens compares to flourescent in wattage? Would this make my 33 gallon a high, medium, or low light tank?
> 
> How reliable are these LED units? What are the chances it will break down?


1600 lumens = 100 Watts incandescent light bulb. 
250 lumens = 40 watts incandescent light bulb.

if you do the math, 2600 lumens = 162 watts incandescent light bulb (more or less).


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## miyabi-aqua (May 20, 2011)

it will also depend on how tall is your tank...the taller the tank the more lumens / intensity you need to reach the bottom...i.e. you want to grow carpet creeping plants.


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## TomC (Apr 21, 2010)

Thanks for all the information. Thanks to a very kind member, I have a choice between 600 lumens of LED, or 2 x 39 watts of T5s. I am going with the latter for now, as it will be more than enough.


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## TomC (Apr 21, 2010)

miyabi-aqua said:


> 1600 lumens = 100 Watts incandescent light bulb.
> 250 lumens = 40 watts incandescent light bulb.
> 
> if you do the math, 2600 lumens = 162 watts incandescent light bulb (more or less).


 I just noticed that this doesn't add up. 1600 lumens = 100 watts is 16 lumens per watt. That means 40 watts should be 640 lumens. (16 x 40 = 640) Is this right?


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## AWW (Apr 22, 2010)

I debated going led in my basement on my 450 gallon to be. I ended up going TH05 because its more trusted. Led is way too knew like grant said. If your going to spend a bunch of money on lights and your wallet is tight, buy what you know will work!! plus power consumption on T5's are way better on T8's.


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## Jaguar (Oct 19, 2011)

I built my own LED setup for my ADA 60-P and I don't regret it one bit. 12 Cree XPG's with a dimmable controller from RapidLED cost me about $175 including the heatsink and Canadian shipping. It puts off about 4,200 lumen at 1A and only consumes 36 watts. I have it 14" above the water (26" from substrate) with 60 degree optics (I would pick 40's if I could do it again), and according to this guy's PAR readings from a similar setup I should have about 100-120 umols at the substrate if I run them at 100% brightness (which I don't). Crazy.

I think that 2,600 lumen fixture would be good low light if it was low to your tank. The biggest appeal of LEDs to me was the shimmer effect - it is gorgeous in a planted display tank. That and no replacing bulbs all the time.


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## miyabi-aqua (May 20, 2011)

Hi Jaguar, Can you post a picture of how your LED lights look like on top of the 60-P? Just like to know how it looks like...esthetically speaking...Thanks.


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## Jaguar (Oct 19, 2011)

Aesthetically speaking it is butt-ugly... lol. But it grows plants very well and the light quality and color are outstanding.

I'm sure it would look great in a custom enclosure, but I lack the DIY skills and tools to do such right now. I had HD bend some half inch conduit for me to make hangers, however they are very high and need trimmed. Otherwise the heat sink just has airline cable tying it to the conduit. When I have a job (rather, if I ever get a job), I will finish the build of this tank... it's been my emersed growout and random bug collecting tank for 4 months now. 

This is the best I could do with my iPhone. This is 1.3A at about 70% brightness. I know it looks dim but that is just my phone adjusting the brightness. Otherwise it looks like a solar flare. The lights in the room are ON. The plant in the bottom is HC. It is over an inch tall in some spots. There is a pile of lettuce for my snail and cyperus helferi in the back. I pulled half an ice cream bucket full of L. repens out of the tank tonight. The roots were 6" long in some spots. In the clear box in the back is glosso that I grew from a single leaf. In the egg carton are 4 catnip plants for my kitty.


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## 2wheelsx2 (Apr 21, 2010)

Jaguar said:


> Aesthetically speaking it is butt-ugly... lol. But it grows plants very well and the light quality and color are outstanding.


I think it looks great. 2 things that would improve it drastically are a shallow shroud around the light to minimize the spillage forward and to cut the LED glare to the eye and cable management so that it runs down the hanger and it would look like a champ. I think for that setup, a brushed aluminum strip around the front and sides would look awesome. But alas, $ is an issue in our hobby, as with any hobby.


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## arash53 (Aug 13, 2011)

Someone in Canreef posted this fixture ,it seems good fixture and good price , it comes with sunrise sunset Intelligent simulation controller and also remote control.

60cm,90cm,120cm sunrise sunset Intelligent simulation automatic Led light aquarium for coral reef ,customer light intensity use software and store in SD card


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## Jaguar (Oct 19, 2011)

2wheelsx2 said:


> I think it looks great. 2 things that would improve it drastically are a shallow shroud around the light to minimize the spillage forward and to cut the LED glare to the eye and cable management so that it runs down the hanger and it would look like a champ. I think for that setup, a brushed aluminum strip around the front and sides would look awesome. But alas, $ is an issue in our hobby, as with any hobby.


Sorry to derail OP's topic but I think his questions have already been answered  But yeah. I have a sheet of aluminum that I wanted to make some kind of curved half circle reflector out of, sort of like the ADA solar fixtures. But because the heatsink is only 4" wide, I couldn't find any easy way to get the right curve. Unfortunately the cables are all extremely short, something I wish I would have known when I ordered it. But I could always change it in the future. The kit was solderless, I just had to do some minor wire stripping and shrink tubing.


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## oyf709 (Sep 18, 2010)

IMO, it really depend on how you feel about your light, but in reality different lights have their own benefit and disavantage. It would just depend on which one you think you can bare with.
LED is higher penetration and higher PAR for less heat and watt. However, due to the LED light beam's nature, most LED fixtures are small and the most lense are just up to 90 degree. This could mean the initial cost of the light is higher if you want to light up the same size tank your T5 or MH used to do.

MH is high enegy consumption and hot like fire. But it does gives you the brightness feeling most people like for freshwater. It does better penetration than T5 or PCs but keeping it running in a hot summer in Vancouver and the light bulbs price is such pain in the rare end.

I would say the PC or T5 has the lowest light penetration, cost and heat issue is between LED and MH.

As far as for performance, I don't think anyone can make a good argument either way. There are way too many variables in this. It could depend on the brand of the LED, brand Ballast and light bulb of MH/T5 or PC. It also depend on certain live stock's reaction.

I personaly goes for LED is because they look a lot more cleaner when sits on the fish tank unlike MH or PC or T5. I like the quietness of the LED that MH and PC can't even compare. I also like LED doesn't have any heat issue and I don't need to waste another $800 on chiller just to lower the heat that my MH put into my tank.

As of live stock, I am a total n00b on fresh water and none of my planted tank went well regardless what I do. I only can speak on behalf of salt water tank that I have. Before I switched to LED, my RBTA was brownish red, my Monti cap looks normal and no one even like to look at it. After I change to LED, RBTA start to glow again and the tenticles are bulb like and looks a lot better. The monti cap grows super fast and looks much more greener. The only thing hates my LED are some of the mushrooms and zooes, I would think because the light is a bit too much for them.

Just my $0.02 no offense to anyone

When I was talking about my RBTA , here is a close shot what I am talking about, when it was under MH, it was solid pinkish brown colour. 
I also include the green monti cap as well.
And these shots are taken under the 144w LED light

















Also about the penetration on tank, last nite I put a 3x1w LED moon light and thinking it might be very dim. However what suprised me was how bright it light up the bottom of my 2 feet tall tank with just 3x 1w LED. I took the shot last nite with no other light sources at all.


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