LED lighting-weigh in?

Beeman

Beeman

Members
Am setting up a new 90g. Would like to hear pros and cons of using LED lighting. I don't anticipate live planting, save for a fore-ground theme plant perhaps. This is for a living-room community tank built around Angels, tetras and Rams. Who likes what?
 
minifoot77

minifoot77

Members
it is supposed to cut your electric bill in half and last lots longer what are the downfalls besides higher initial cost?
 
verbal

verbal

CCA Members
With standard LEDs and a 90 gallon tank you are going to likely need a spotlight for foreground planting.

I have a 29 with a standard LED hood. It has Java fern that is doing ok, but not growing a ton. However in terms of light for seeing the fish, it is great.
 
Beeman

Beeman

Members
I'm after a different look than the standard intense look that fluorescent light provides. Quite by accident, I have a 27 hex with orange/white background light., X-mas strand sort of light. The back light, with the main off, looks GREAT!!! Go figure! I just wonder if the blue, moon-light effect that most LED's come with, wouldn't be equally . . . . new? different?
Time to take aquaculture to the next visual level!
 
M

mrkillie

Members
minifoot77 said:
it is supposed to cut your electric bill in half and last lots longer what are the downfalls besides higher initial cost?
Click to expand...

Let's say grossly higher initial cost.

Also, you can't replace the bulbs, so the the entire unit will have to be replaced if too many lights burn out. Assuming 20,000 hr lifespan, and being on for 10 hrs/day, that's less than 6 yrs. I have flourescent light fixtures that are 3 times that age, if not more.
 
verbal

verbal

CCA Members
mrkillie said:
Let's say grossly higher initial cost.

Also, you can't replace the bulbs, so the the entire unit will have to be replaced if too many lights burn out. Assuming 20,000 hr lifespan, and being on for 10 hrs/day, that's less than 6 yrs. I have flourescent light fixtures that are 3 times that age, if not more.
Click to expand...

Not replacing the bulbs also means that you don't have to buy replacement bulbs. With a double t5HO, you will likely pay as much in bulbs as you will in that period.

I don't think the case is too strong to replace existing fixtures, but for a new purchase LEDs deserve a look.
 
mchambers

mchambers

Former CCA member
I have a Marineland LED fixture on a 29 gallon tank that I won in July at the ACA convention. I'm happy with it -- the fish look great and my low light plants are surviving, although they aren't growing much.

If I were to need another light, I'd definitely consider an LED fixture.
 
rich_one

rich_one

Members
I actually want to convert to LED fixtures, because they don't run as hot. But man... expensive to buy. At least most of what I have found so far, anyway...

-Rich
 
Hawkman2000

Hawkman2000

Members
LEDs -

Pro's

Lower energy consumption
Adds shimmer effect to water
last longer
Very low heat output

Cons

MUCH higher cost
Bulbs not replaceable (usually)
Not very good at stimulating plant growth
Not as much light output as Fluorescent

Check out Ecoxotic, they have some cool stuff. I would like to try pouting there PAR 38 bulbs in some pendant light installed over a display tank.

There is also a guy selling some stunners on CL.
 
W

WendyFish

Members
We have an LED fixture on a 20L and I love the way it looks. Here are some quick pics of the day and night lights.

LED_20L_Daylight.jpg

LED_20L_Night.jpg
 
Andrewtfw

Andrewtfw

Global Moderators
Wendy- the tank looks great. Are those the LED HO LEDs for Coral? I have not heard great things about the Marineland standard LED fixture. The EcoXotic Panorama Modules are intensely bright and not too expensive. They are about 100.00 through their site or from www.championlighting.com. Any decent fixture will cost at least this much. The Stunner strips are also nice, but not as intense as the Panorama. Checkout www.ecoxotic.com and look at the videos at the bottom of each lighting page.
 
Hawkman2000

Hawkman2000

Members
Wendy, thats a Marineland light isn't it? Double or single bright? LOOKS GREAT. One more question, can you have both actinic/blue and daylight on at the same time?

I was thinking of getting rid of my Eclipse hood on my 20L and getting an the same light for it until I modified the filter system. Now I am considering LED for my 46 BF.

I don't know how well those lower power LED fixtures would work on a deeper/thicker tank though. Like a 90 gallon.
 
verbal

verbal

CCA Members
Hawkman2000 said:
Wendy, thats a Marineland light isn't it? Double or single bright? LOOKS GREAT. One more question, can you have both actinic/blue and daylight on at the same time?
Click to expand...

The single bright has the white lights and the blue lights on during the "daylight" setting. The moonlight setting is just the blue lights.

I do like the moonlight setting a lot.
 
W

WendyFish

Members
It's the Marineland double bright. And yep, it's either/or on the day and night lights, can't run both.

I like tanks looking really bright, so I'm not sure I would use these for a bigger tank. If anyone does, I'd love to see how it looks -- as seen in another thread, we're scheming up some new big tanks (48" 120s or maybe a 6') so I'd also love to know how these translate. We run 3 HOs on our big tank.

The fish are gold occellatus (you can see 4 of them in front of their shells in the day pic) and julidochromis transcriptus live in the rocks.
 
Hawkman2000

Hawkman2000

Members
I would like to find one that has 6700k LEDs and one T5-NO for actinic. From what I have seen, blue LEDs just aren't the same. Work great for moonlight though.
 
B

BenM3

Members
I have both Marinelands Double Bright and Reef Capable 48-60"s. My review. The Double Brights are nice. Really depends on how bright you want your tank. The Reef Capables are great. Expensive, but great. I have 2 of them on a 110. What I found is that they don't have reflectors, so you end up needing 2 fixture rather than one. My plants grow very well, the blue light is great at night. With the Double brights, the blue is very weak and won't light a 90 as it won't penetrate deep enough. Not an issue with the Reefs capable ones.
 
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