LED Not so great ?

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RobStark

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Jul 13, 2014
Messages
67
Location
Northeast PA
I have a small LED strip on my 10 gallon and it lights up the tank nice. This is my first tank so I know next to nothing about aquarium lighting.

I'm setting up a 29 gallon bowfront that a friend gave me but It came with no lighting or filter. So I thought I'd get an bigger LED strip seeing as I like the way the 10 gallon looks with LEDs.

So I go to the local family owned fish shop. After meeting the owner and telling him what I was looking at, he guided me toward a lighting setup called a T5 for 65 dollars. I looked at it for a moment but thought "I really want an LED strip".

Then the owners son who's around my age comes over and starts talking to me about lighting. There were a row of about 8 very large 150+ gallon tanks against the back wall. One of them was lit up so nice. Very bright and clear. The others were kind of dull and not so bright.

He explained to me the one that looked so great and bright was actually a T5 setup and the dull ones were LEDs. The LED ones he told me the price range was either 350 or 550 dollars, I forget now, but It was definitely shocking to me.

So what he tells me is this. The technology isn't there yet. If you want good LEDs that will last many years and really brighten up a tank, the only ones he trusts are the ones that cost thousands of dollars. The 550 dollar ones he had there were having issues and he said all the ones under that price point he either has issues with one thing or another or just don't light the tank as well as the T5's. They don't last long for the price, being as when something goes wrong with them you have to replace the whole unit instead of just a bulb. And they were pulling waaay more watts than the T5s. He had some there that were 2, 3 or 5 watts per LED and some that only had a half watt but many more LEDs. And when added up and adding in the capacitors they were pulling way more power and were even hotter to the touch.

Plus the nicest looking tank in that place that I thought was lit by LEDs was the one that wasn't lit by LEDs. All of this kind of disillusioned me, especially since I was planning on buying an LED strip that was about 50-75 bux. And at that price I'm sure they would be less than stellar just as that guys 550 dollar ones were.

What do you guys think of this? Are there some LEDs under 100 dollars that maybe this guy doesn't know about that are actually quality and better than a comparable priced T5 setup? He grew up in this shop that's been open for 29 years and installs professional aquariums so as of now I'm following his advice and forgetting about the LED strip for this particular setup.
 
Hmm. I have a Finnex planted + that I got off of Amazon pretty cheap. It is on a ten gallon and the plants respond very well. The plants actually pearl if that helps.
 
Yeah after reading around here a bit I was looking at the finnex planted +
They are in my price point and seem to be recommended quite often on the forums. But being as I don't know much about aquarium lighting I thought maybe they are better for certain situations like heavily planted tanks, where i'm just going to start dabbling in live plants and don't plan on doing a full blown planted tank yet. I just don't know. Is there a particular reason I should go LED over T5 for the under 100 price point? What are the reasons people do? is it just a matter of preference when it comes down to a mostly fake plants aquarium?
 
Not really. A T5HO fixture is fine. An AquaticLife dual T5HO fixture is about as good as it gets. You will want 6500K bulbs or something close to it. The problem with T5s is you have to change bulbs and ballasts from time to time. With LEDs you do not and they use less electricity. I recommend Finnex for LED.
 
LED's have tremendous versatility such as dimming, controllable RGB for coloring effects, sunrise, moonlight etc. They also have lower electricity costs, longer life span etc. but in general they also have higher up front costs.

Fluorescent are inexpensive with less versatility and higher long term costs but there is nothing wrong with fluorescent aquarium lights as they have been serving people well for a long time.

No insult intended, but the opinions of the owners son was not valid, more of a general misconception for whatever reason.

I like LED's but I run both
 
No insult taken. If hes wrong hes wrong. His main point to me was that the lower priced LEDs hes had experience with didnt impress him and didnt last anywhere near as long as they said they would. But he did still have LED setups on a few of his coral tanks. Granted they were 550 dollar LEDs not 50 or so like the ones I was looking at.

Im actually quite glad to see people disagreeing with him because I do like the choices of colorings and moonlight feature the LED has to offer. .plus if they really are more energy efficient thats always a plus

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Aquarium Advice mobile app
 
Not saying I believe hes wrong either though. I cant really convey the things he was saying well but he was very convincing..especially since he had no dog in the fight and had both LED and T5s for sale at the shop. And looking at the effects on his tanks first hand I have to say it was blatantly obvious the t5 was the clearest brightest of the tanks. Either way it wont matter as much in my little freshwater setup as huge coral tanks and ill probably be ok either way.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Aquarium Advice mobile app
 
I work in an industry heavily involved in lighting, and in a past life also designed ballasts for gas discharge lighting (mainly flouro and metal halide) and more recently LED drive circuits. using this knowledge I custom designed and built my own LED fittings for my tank as I am a new beginner to the hobby of freshwater fish keeping and the retail cost of LED fittings is extortionate compared to making your own.

In short, the sales guys information is probably about 5 years out of date. Yes there was a time when LED technology was subpar, but not so anymore. There may be stock in stores which dates back to or before this time they are still trying to sell, but that's not a true reflection of current LED technology.

In years to come flouro style lighting will go the way of the incandescent.

Also in a coral or planted tank, just because a T5 looks "brighter" doesn't necessarily mean its going to help your plants or coral to grow any better. The human eyes response to the visible colour spectrum is not linear. What we regard as bright has a large yellow and green spectrum component, which plants and coral largely do not respond to.
 
I run both and I like the LEDs. They are sleeker looking (smaller housing) and put out a lot less heat than fluorescents. There are some cheap LEDs out there as well as some feature rich models.
 
Great post Britty. Being as you build your own and aren't even mentioning brand names I know you're not just pushing a product for your own agenda. The guy at the store may have been right as far as his stock went. Or maybe he was trying to get rid of his old stock to make way for new LEDs LOL..I doubt it but I guess you never know. He did seem genuine enough and If I followed his advice with his particular stock I would probably be OK. That said I was initially looking to do LEDs and would still like to do them as long as I don't end up with a cheaply made brand or outdated technology. I guess I still have some research to do, I've seen the finnex planted+ mentioned in a few threads and now this one too so I'll look some more at those.
 
I'm seeing some posts saying some LEDs aren't as good for deeper tanks as others. On a 21" tall 29 gallon bowfront, I might plant a few real plants in the tank eventually or have a few floaters. But for now just all fakes. Would you suggest the finnex ray 2 over the fugeray for this situation? Or would the marineland double bright LEDs do good enough?
 
I'm seeing some posts saying some LEDs aren't as good for deeper tanks as others. On a 21" tall 29 gallon bowfront, I might plant a few real plants in the tank eventually or have a few floaters. But for now just all fakes. Would you suggest the finnex ray 2 over the fugeray for this situation? Or would the marineland double bright LEDs do good enough?

This is true.

Each part of the visible light spectrum penetrates water depths differently. Red spectrum gets absorbed very quickly in terms of depth once it gets past the water surface. For the same light concentration, at the other extreme, deep blue spectrum is much more energetic and can penetrate to depths far beyond red. All the remaining visible colour spectrum in between varys in effective depth penetration between the two extremes.

So, LED fixtures for plant and coral growths have two main favours, (there is a whole range but it basically comes down to two main areas)

You can talk in terms of colour temps.

Like 3000 - 4000 degree K fittings have a large red/yellow spectrum component. So their light appears yellowish to the eyes. These aren't so good for tank plants so not even a consideration for trying to light up a planted or coral tank. Ok if you don't mind the yellowish tinge and have a tank filled with fake plants or no plants.

Most commercial LED fixtures are made for shallow(ish) tanks, these tend to have a large 6500+ degree K component and in combination with some blue LEDs are great for the majority of tanks out to 12 - 16" depth.

Deep tank LED fixtures are designed around 10,000 K - 14,000K with greater number of blue and ultra blue LEDS. The greater concentration in the blue spectrum penetrates water depth much better and can photosynthesise plants and corals at the bottom. These give the tank a blueish tinge which (I think) looks pretty cool but the eye perceives it as 'less bright' even though the plants love it.

All this is given equal light concentrations between the examples. You can certainly pump more 6500'K light into a 21" tank if you oversupply the light intensity to effectively get to the bottom. Brute force method to overcome the water depth loss.

Use google for some great information on light spectrum and depth penetration and effective light spectrum spreads for under water plant photosynthesis. Theres a whole science behind it all.
 
For your tank, I would consider taking a look at BeamsWork LEDs. I got a BeamsWork fixture for my 33 gallon hex tank (almost 2' deep) and it likes the tank up really well. The fixture was cheap, it's super slim, doesn't get hot like T5, and it's got a moonlight setting. This tank has all fake plants.
 
I decided I'm probably ordering the Current Freshwater LED+
For the price It really has alot of features and It seems alot of people like them.
As long as the remote doesn't break.
 
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