Anyone Have LED Tank Lights??

[kobrinfamily]

Hi everyone I am intrested in getting LED light's for my tank dose anyone use these in there tanks?? If so let me know what you think and if you like them or not.

Thankyou

Ruth

 

[krap101]

Jimbo made some recently, and I'll have mine done in the next couple weeks. The par levels are supposed to be far superior to mh and others, while the lumens might be around the same, along with power consumption (but maybe half to 3/4 for mh)

 

[pat8you]

They are great for small tanks but can get expensive in a hurry for larger set ups. Tanks that are not shallow will need optics to get the light to penetrate into the bottom of the tank. They do have a lot of advantages though and if i had the money i would upgrade to LEDs in a heart beat.

 

[twincessna340a]

LEDs are definitely cool. I have a blue one from Hagen's Marineland line. I set it up a few inches above my 20g high and angeled it down for a really cool moon beam effect.

 

[krap101]

building my led will cost me about the same as a normal setup, but this is for my 10 gallon. I think the scale is almost linear with surface area, maybe 12-15 leds per meanwell (what I'm using) 30$ or so, 3-8$ per led, heatsink will probably be around 30-50$,

 

[mrg02d]

Ive got one. Works well. I can dim the blue leds and the whites seperately. 12 leds total, 7.5g rimless tank (12in cube).

Colors are far superior to anything I have seen!

Matt

 

[David S]

I have aqua fx and aqua ray leds,the fx simulates sunrise,morning,day,evening,dusk and then moonlight,they have loads of settings like ocean,rainbow,night,red,blue,yellow,green,purple,white,thousands of colours.great piece of kit.

 

[WhiteDevil]

KRAP101

id like to see the steps because I am looking at LED's for my old man's 210
he has a 5' T5ho 80x8 set up and the room it is in even with an ac duct plus two fans and a exhaust fan the room stays around 90 degrees.
Thanks.

 

[Jimbo7]

I just finished mine a couple weeks ago. Can't say enough about them. The build thread is in my sig.

 

[pat8you]

building my led will cost me about the same as a normal setup, but this is for my 10 gallon. I think the scale is almost linear with surface area, maybe 12-15 leds per meanwell (what I'm using) 30$ or so, 3-8$ per led, heatsink will probably be around 30-50$,

It gets a little more expensive when you are talking bigger tanks. Larger tanks need optics which add some expense to each LED. Dependind on how narrow of optics you get you may need to space the LEDs closer together to help avoid streaking. Also for wider tanks the heatsink has to be wider to compensate and i've heard the wider heatsinks are less standard and consiquently more expensive. I do however think that for the price of a good DIY LED set up it is probably not all that much more expensive then the fixture you would have to buy to get the equivalent amount of light.

 

[David S]

you can get led tubes to retrofit the T5 and t8 fittings as well

 

[mrg02d]

Good point about tank size. My led light fills the 7.5g tank with light but would need optics and double the leds/size to have a shot at my t5 setup on my 20g. I held it over the 20g and was really dissapointed. Im guessing with optics and at least double the leds it might work, but probably not as well as my t5s...

You really want to know what you are doing before risking $200.00 worth of leds. My hand slipped while connecting my whites to their driver and instantly fried all 4. Thats $24.00 plus shipping mistake right there.
Matt

 

[krap101]

Currently the best way to judge leds is by surface area. 1 3w led per 12in^2 is very high light, 1 per 18in^2 is high light and so on (of course this is an estimate, but par values for leds are so high.) Also another thing to consider is you need enough leds to prevent spotlighting in the tank.

 

[WhiteDevil]

Krap is that 12" and 18" squared?

My surface area is 12 square feet I believe, its 6' W by 2' deep. and these retro kits for the T5 and T8's are where?

My wattage now (not that it matters with a tank that size ive been told) is 640W for 6 hours and 320W for the other 4, I do this to create a midday intensity.

 

[krap101]

So, that means you have 1728 in^2, so lets use the 18 in^2, you'll need 96 leds, assuming your tank isn't too deep.

 

[WhiteDevil]

30" deep. How do LED's do for planted tanks? Do they have what we use?

 

[krap101]

Leds have about the same lumen per watt as t5ho, but have a ridiculous amount of par, which is what plants use. I'm not sure if its the same for saltwater as fw, but in sw, people's corals were bleaching because of how much light (par) was put off. Lumens are what we see, and lux/par are what is actually put out.

30" you should be fine. Again, it depends on what leds you use, how you run them, but also, leds are still pretty new, so it's likely you'll have to turn down your leds, once you're done I think. I'm not sure at what point you'll need optics though. My 29 is 18" deep, and my 10 is... lol... 12" deep

 

[mrg02d]

Id suggest optics for a 30in deep tank. My 20g is 15in to the sandbed and my 12 led light didnt look to be penetrating like the t5s do.

I guess I have a very high light output light. 144in^2 and 12 3w leds...My zoanthids seem to like it, but the acans and chalices do NOT. Ive got the blues at 50% and the whites at 30%.

Matt

 

[WhiteDevil]

yeah my T5's penetrate the substrate about 2 inches.

Krap, thank you I will start looking for 3w led's and start adding up the new damages lol

 

[krap101]

Since I guess you're using optics, it would seem that you'll need to add more leds to prevent spotlighting?