LED's and plants

[summercgreen]

I recently moved from a 55g to a 180g aquarium and now I need more plants. But the lighting I have is LED's in the new tank. Will my plants grow and do well? If so which plants would be good

 

[blert]

That would depend on the LEDs.
What fixture is it?

 

[Nogauthi]

I recently moved from a 55g to a 180g aquarium and now I need more plants. But the lighting I have is LED's in the new tank. Will my plants grow and do well? If so which plants would be good

I was wondering the same. Got a 16000 k led

 

[blert]

I was wondering the same. Got a 16000 k led

Again, it would depend on the LEDs.

Do you guys have a make and model for the fixture?

Are they DIY?
If so... What is the color ratio? What type of LEDs did you use? How many LEDs? What is the footprint of the tank? Optics?

 

[d_flo_yo]

Also curious. I understand how the spectrum and color temperature work, but in reading I see people recommend a certain number of watts per gallon. LEDs, CFL, and incandescent lights all provide different levels of light at a given wattage. Is there a number of lumens we should aim for?

 

[Nogauthi]

Again, it would depend on the LEDs.

Do you guys have a make and model for the fixture?

Are they DIY?
If so... What is the color ratio? What type of LEDs did you use? How many LEDs? What is the footprint of the tank? Optics?

Well I got a razor r420r 16000k

 

[summercgreen]

That would depend on the LEDs.
What fixture is it?

I'm not sure. I work in a sign shop so I'm going to make my own. I can have any number of led's/ ballasts I want. My tank is 2'x2'x6'.

 

[summercgreen]

Again, it would depend on the LEDs.

Do you guys have a make and model for the fixture?

Are they DIY?
If so... What is the color ratio? What type of LEDs did you use? How many LEDs? What is the footprint of the tank? Optics?

I will have to check tomorrow when I'm at work.

 

[blert]

Well I got a razor r420r 16000k

The 10000K version would be better for a freshwater planted tank, the 16000k is a reef light. It might work though. It could be a massive amount of light depending on tank depth and coverage. Is it dimmable? Can you dim the blues separate from the whites?

 

[Nogauthi]

The 10000K version would be better for a freshwater planted tank, the 16000k is a reef light. It might work though. It could be a massive amount of light depending on tank depth and coverage. Is it dimmable? Can you dim the blues separate from the whites?

Yes I wanted the 10000k but they couldn't order it. Only the 8000k or 16000k. It was a preset that dimes itself and keep only 1% of blue for over night. I can preset it myself the white separate of blue but don't know at what

My tank is 65 gallon 24 inches deep

 

[blert]

As I said, it might work, but I think the coverage is going to be spotty. How many LEDs of each color? It's supposed to have two drivers so I would figure you can dim the blues alone. You are probably going to need to raise it pretty high to get decent coverage if whites but then you will be sacrificing PAR.

 

[Billbug68]

I feel like this thread got hijacked a little bit. 16000k is the wrong spectrum for plants. The 8000k would have been better. However, the watts of the LEDs will decide how much par you'll be getting. Don't bother with this .25 watt LEDs. You'll barely have enough for low light plants, if that.

To the op. you can definitely do a DIY fixture if you have the recourses, but you'll need to do some good research to decide on what LEDs and how many you'll need. Seems like too much trouble to me, though.

 

[summercgreen]

Okay these are the LEDs I'm going to use. These ones are blue but the whites are the same. Will these work?

 

[Billbug68]

Okay these are the LEDs I'm going to use. These ones are blue but the whites are the same. Will these work?

No idea, do you have specifications for them? Kelvin, watts?

 

[summercgreen]

No idea, do you have specifications for them? Kelvin, watts?

Does this help?

 

[summercgreen]

This is what I found online for them.

 

[Billbug68]

Does this help?

They might be okay, I have no experience with DIY LEDs, but I'm thinking they might be fine. Is it saying each led is 1.3 watts with a color temp of 6300k? For a tank of your size, I'm thinking you'll need a lot or more powerful leds to suffice, depending on what level light you want to be at.Maybe someone else will chime in on this. Perhaps some research on DIY led fixtures is in order.

 

[summercgreen]

They might be okay, I have no experience with DIY LEDs, but I'm thinking they might be fine. Is it saying each led is 1.3 watts with a color temp of 6300k? For a tank of your size, I'm thinking you'll need a lot or more powerful leds to suffice, depending on what level light you want to be at.Maybe someone else will chime in on this. Perhaps some research on DIY led fixtures is in order.

Yes this per LED. They come about 4-5" apart so I was thinking a strip right across. Maybe 15?

 

[Billbug68]

If you want to grow plants, you'll need more than that.

 

[summercgreen]

If you want to grow plants, you'll need more than that.

I can have as many as needed. Just don't have a clue what plants need.