Led or fluorescent lighting?

[snowdrop7]

I have a 50 gallon freshwater aquarium with 9 goldfish successfully saved from an old pond. This is my first experience, so I really owe my success to the wonderful support from members of this forum. The tank came with 2 hoods and fluorescent lights, (standard I believe), from Petsmart. Now the lights have gone out from one of the hoods and I'm wondering if I should just replace them or move to LED lighting. Would be happy for any advice as I really don't know a thing about lighting. I know LED will be more expensive but it's worth it if it's better for the fish? I've had them nearly a year!

 

[mfdrookie516]

just stick with what you've got.. led technology is still young (meaning really expensive) and light does not matter unless you've got plants anyways...

 

[thincat]

I agee with MF, LED tecnology is mainly for reef tanks and very high light requirements. You would be best to stick with the setup that you have now.

 

[MarkA123]

I don't see a need for LEDs, for a freshwater I can only see one reason you would get some, for looks. They are primarily for reefs.

 

[Jimbo7]

I am a big proprietor of LED's, I would say your best option would be those new tubes that are full of LED's but fit in a standard florescent fixture. They are initially more costly but will run forever and save you energy. I would only get them if you are sure you aren't going to upgrade your lighting anytime soon.

but again, my opinion is super biased i love LED's

 

[Innovator]

LED's are a wonderful investment, but in the future. As another stated, the technology is a bit early in development and from I have heard from a very reliable source, there are only 2 specific fixtures even worth their while.

 

[snowdrop7]

Thank you all very much. I do appreciate and have learned something I did not know. I guess I would all the same be interested in Jimbo7's suggestion because they save energy and do not heat (I've head also), if I can find them. My fish like cool water. And perhaps too: looks

 

[MarkA123]

Great, but Im confused about why LEDs in freshwater? Besides looking cool what do they do in a fw? I thought they were for saltwater mainly? I'm glad you decided LEDs but I'm wondering if they have any advantages in fw besides looking cool. I agree they are pretty amazing, I got to see a bio cube led hqi it was great lighting.

 

[Jimbo7]

Well there are a bunch of different types of LED's. The ones you see on reef tanks are usually a high power 3w+ LED and are meant to duplicate the power of the sun or other lighting systems.

The ones you see over freshwater are usually a smaller wattage (besides planted tanks) and are meant to take advantage of the energy saving and long life aspects of the diode. There is a huge decrease of energy usage along with a 10+ year span in life without spectrum shift.

 

[Hawk013]

I am tired of everyone talking about how much energy you can save by switching to LED lighting. LED output is well below most long fluorescent tubes is efficiency, and is typically 5 to 10 times the cost. By watt of electricity used, LEDs vary from 15-20 lumens (typical white LED), to 50-60 lumens (most expensive premium LED), which is barely the same as a cheap compact fluorescent bulb. The other side of the story not often told is that high power LEDs generate a lot of heat, and tend to lose efficiency and much of their lifespan by being driven at their rated output. So no, your new overpriced fixture will not save you money over fluorescent lighting, and it will not last for 10 years with no loss of brightness or color shift. LEDs do age, and can vary their color based on output. High pressure sodium is the most efficient lighting generally available (up to 140 lumens/watt), followed by metal halide units (80-120 lumens /watt). A 21 watt t5 tube can have an output as high as 90-95 lumens/watt, much more economical than a 100$ LED fixture with 12 watts at 30 lumens/watt output.
LEDs have several advantages, mostly their package size, durability, and efficiency at LOW power. Most LED fixtures can claim to use much less electricity than your typical 400w halide + 4 55w power compact setups, but they also only put out a tiny fraction of the light.
Summary - If you want a little light to see your fish by, a cheap LED fixture is a great way to go. If you want to grow corals, the high lighting intensity needed means halides or T5 tubes are the best value and still the most efficient. LED technology is still not advanced enough to compete outside of a laboratory.

 

[Jimbo7]

I am tired of everyone talking about how much energy you can save by switching to LED lighting. LED output is well below most long fluorescent tubes is efficiency, and is typically 5 to 10 times the cost. By watt of electricity used, LEDs vary from 15-20 lumens (typical white LED), to 50-60 lumens (most expensive premium LED), which is barely the same as a cheap compact fluorescent bulb. The other side of the story not often told is that high power LEDs generate a lot of heat, and tend to lose efficiency and much of their lifespan by being driven at their rated output. So no, your new overpriced fixture will not save you money over fluorescent lighting, and it will not last for 10 years with no loss of brightness or color shift. LEDs do age, and can vary their color based on output. High pressure sodium is the most efficient lighting generally available (up to 140 lumens/watt), followed by metal halide units (80-120 lumens /watt). A 21 watt t5 tube can have an output as high as 90-95 lumens/watt, much more economical than a 100$ LED fixture with 12 watts at 30 lumens/watt output.
LEDs have several advantages, mostly their package size, durability, and efficiency at LOW power. Most LED fixtures can claim to use much less electricity than your typical 400w halide + 4 55w power compact setups, but they also only put out a tiny fraction of the light.
Summary - If you want a little light to see your fish by, a cheap LED fixture is a great way to go. If you want to grow corals, the high lighting intensity needed means halides or T5 tubes are the best value and still the most efficient. LED technology is still not advanced enough to compete outside of a laboratory.

You are right on a couple points here. LED's are not a superior alternative for your larger and deeper reef, and I think anyone out there will admit that. For what it would cost you to emulate a 400w bulb with the same penetration, it probably wouldn't be worth it. What they are great for is smaller and shallower builds where the heat of a MH or the availability of small size T5 tubes will not work. LED's do put off a fair amount of heat, but when used with a heatsink and even basic cooling, will not put any heat into your tank. Metal halides put so much heat into your tank because they emit UV light which warms the water quicker.

Lumens are a fairly antiquated way of thinking about lighting. Through several studies what matters more is the PAR values which high power 3w LED's do have a lot of. I really wish I had a PAR meter to back this with some numbers, but you can look at this article with some better data, and its from 2007. There have been huge strides in LED technology since then.
Product Review: Aqua llumination's LED Lighting System: An 88-watt Sun for Your Reef Tank | Advanced Aquarist's Online Magazine

I would easily compare my LED's to a 150w MH over my 12 having kept a Crocea clam and about every different type of SPS out there. I'm not sure how you can say that LED's do not save you energy when I am getting a very close result at less then 1/4 the power consumption. Even if I run them at 100% with half the lifetime, the money saved not having to buy 5-8 MH bulbs and the extra utilities bill makes them life savers in my book.

 

[Hawk013]

First of all, a product review is not a scientific study, and this one is clearly biased towards LED's. The halide tested against (20k) is a horrible color temperature for growing corals and is a lower efficiency color in general, and will only give poor results when compared against a lower color (6.8-7.2k especially) light of any sort. Also, the plot of the halides light output is on a different scale, giving the impression of it being much worse than it was. Second, heat is radiated as IR, not UV; and most good halide fixtures have UV filtering glass lenses built into them. Third, a halide fixtures efficiency is greatly affected by the quality of its reflector, something your LED review apparently doesn't take into consideration.
If you are getting the same results with 1/4 the wattage LED's, which even at their best are no more efficient per watt (show me a LED fixture outputting over 80 lumens/watt), as you did with a halide lamp, then either your halide fixture or bulb was wrong for your needs, or maybe you had 4 times more light than you needed? Having the right lamp for your coral type and depth is much more efficient than throwing just any high powered fixture over your tank.

 

[mdaniel2882]

First of all, a product review is not a scientific study, and this one is clearly biased towards LED's. The halide tested against (20k) is a horrible color temperature for growing corals and is a lower efficiency color in general, and will only give poor results when compared against a lower color (6.8-7.2k especially) light of any sort. Also, the plot of the halides light output is on a different scale, giving the impression of it being much worse than it was. Second, heat is radiated as IR, not UV; and most good halide fixtures have UV filtering glass lenses built into them. Third, a halide fixtures efficiency is greatly affected by the quality of its reflector, something your LED review apparently doesn't take into consideration.
If you are getting the same results with 1/4 the wattage LED's, which even at their best are no more efficient per watt (show me a LED fixture outputting over 80 lumens/watt), as you did with a halide lamp, then either your halide fixture or bulb was wrong for your needs, or maybe you had 4 times more light than you needed? Having the right lamp for your coral type and depth is much more efficient than throwing just any high powered fixture over your tank.

While they are expensive, the par of a LED connot be denied. here is a graph of the par output on a aqua illumination led fixture. It blows a 250W MH out of the water. the one I saw was against a 20k radium bulb, lumen bright pendant and a lumentek balast. the cost of the MH setup is around $360-400 and the aqua illumination is around 600. 200 more but it does ALOT more stuff (moon lights, storms, cloud cover, sunrise, etc) once you add in the moon lights and the supplemental actinic t-5's to the MH fixture the cost is nearly the same. The price of the LED's are on the way down. Soon MH's and T-5's will go the way of VHO's

Check out this thread - http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f60/aqua-illumnation-and-profilux-omg-134906.html

 

[MarkA123]

Ok, so in confused. Is there any reason to put LEDs in a fw? Besides cost, energy efficacy , life of the bulb, looks, etc. Like actual reasons, that don't have anything to do with cost energy used or looks, life, etc? Is it beneficial to plants or the fish or good bacteria or something, or maybe changes algae growth for the better or worse? I've been looking at the marineland LEDs.

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

... Is there any reason to put LEDs in a fw? Besides cost, energy efficacy , life of the bulb, looks, etc. Like actual reasons, that don't have anything to do with cost energy used or looks, life, etc? ...

If you rule out all those things, then no... in my opinion, there's no reason to use LEDs... regardless of what type of tank it is.