LED Lighting

[clowninround]

What is the rule of thumb for LED lighting? How many of those puppies would you need to equal a 250 MH? I am looking at some that come 4 on a strip, they are linkable for a real good price. Does anyone know what equals what? TIA

[black hills tj]

you are looking for led's equivalent to 250 MH watts? Something tells me that is going to be a ridiculous number...

[fishfreek]

Actually I have to say I am seeing some things at Macna that blows my mind with LED. THere is a booth that is setup that has a LED enclosure setup that is side by side with a 400W MH and the PAR reading on the LED at approx the same color depth is higher than that of the 400W MH. http://www.pfolighting.com is the website. There are a few LED light manufacturers so check around. We will have to see from real life use what the life span on these fixtures is. They claim 50K hours of life with no 'bulb changes' to that itself can help offset any premium in the price if it holds up as being the case in the real world.

Its not a good comparison to be asking how many LED's for a given MH wattage. This is because unlike MH the LED is not light from a single point. It is aken to trying to compare MH to florescent. Since a MH bulb is really only good for a 2' square area if you have a tank that is longer than 3' you really need more than 1 bulb and the bulb on one side gives the opposite side no real usable light so having a 4' tank with 2 250W bulbs is really like having 2 2' tanks with a single 250 over each where as a florescent fixture or a LED fixture the light is over the entire length of the tank.

The LED's are amazing as they put out no real heat. The one unit I looked at closely had an internal thermometer on it and inside the unit it was temp controlled at 90*F and there was zero heat transfer outside the enclosure unlike a MH or even florecent that puts some heat into the water from the bulb.

[clowninround]

That's what I have been reading, no heat transfer and energy efficient. For me, that is a big pay off. But like you say, how long the bulbs really last is another question to ask. Current sells really affordable led lights. That's what I am looking at now, a 12" strip of 4 LEDs sells for 75.00 and 55.00 for each additional link (links up to two more additional lights). It has 10k's and 460 atinic's.