# Mars LED lighting advice



## AndrewI (Jan 18, 2016)

Hello
I've been looking into LED lighting that would promote good growth for a heavily planted freshwater tank. My research has led me to looking into using Mars LEDs which seem to be reasonably priced with plenty of watts. The Mars aqua 165w LED appear to be very good for marine tanks but that if you were going to use them for freshwater plants then half of the blue LEDs are not required. Thus, less watts more expensive. However, the Mars hydro LEDs seem to have all the right wavelengths for plant growth but are presented for horticultural use only. I have been unable to find anyone using these for freshwater planted tanks.
Does anyone use the Mars hydro LEDs for freshwater planted tanks?
Any info or thoughts would be very appreciated.
Cheers
Andrew


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## kyle2088 (Jun 28, 2005)

I see a number of Mars Hydro models for horiculture. It may help if you are a little more specific on the type of model you are looking at. 

SOme models are only in the red and blue spectrum only some models you can adjust colours with added leds infra red and white leds added.

The only thing I see if its in the red and blue spectrum it may not be appeasing to the eyes and the model with differen colour led added you may get a disco effect on your aquarium.

I have neither of these models but hve experimented with some led strips in red and blue added to y T5s in past


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## Yo-han (Oct 15, 2010)

They probably grow plants like crazy, but your tank will look all purple. Perfect for your plants, but not very pleasing to look at.


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## ObiQuiet (Oct 9, 2009)

Idea: Put them on a timer for when you're not home, to get the wavelength benefits without the aesthetic color problem.


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## AndrewI (Jan 18, 2016)

Excellent advice, thanks everyone! 
I had been concentrating on finding the best for my plants and forgot about presentation. I've looked at the specs for the Mars Hydro lights, yep, all too ‘purple’.
Using this sort of light during the day is not a bad suggestion but you would then need 2 sets of lights for when presentation is important.
Perhaps we have stumbled across a great lighting solution for those who set up tanks to grow plants only.
Mars do a grow bar LED as well which they say you can choose the lights you want but will only sell wholesale. I've asked whether they can sell the ratio 4 (6500k cool white) 1 (470nm blue) 1 (660nm red) to an individual and how much. I expect that they will say no.
Cheers
Andrew


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## TropTrea (Jan 10, 2014)

I had done a lot of experimentation with LED's and will say the following.

Plants grow the best with the proper balance of both red and blue lighting. But with most LED's this creates several issues.

1. there is no balanced red and blue LED. Instead you need to combine red and blue LED's into the fixture. But specific red and blue LED's only cover a narrow band of the spectrum there for you realy need a combination of roughly 6 different to cover the spectrum properly.

2. If you light up a tank with red and blue only it will be super efficient but look purple with the green plants looking almost black since there is no green light to reflect back at your.

The solution I found is mixing Daylight (cool white) 6,000 to 6,500K LED's with neutral white 4,000 to 4,500K LED's . the Cool White give a strong blue spectrum with some green and a minimal amount of red light. The neutral whites produce a fairly balanced spectrum providing enough red to balance with the blue in daylight LED's. they both are producing green light so the appearance is fairly balanced. 

As most people already know I'm a DIY LED person. To me most commercial fixtures are not what they are made out to be and can be improved on for a fraction of the cost.


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## Maryland Guppy (Mar 5, 2015)

I have added a channel of 6 full spectrum 3 watt LED's to a 4' fixture.
Had to lower that channel a bit, too much pink/purple.
Huge boost in plant growth and fert consumption.
Too many of these would not be appealing IMO.
But on a grow out tank, great experiment.


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## AndrewI (Jan 18, 2016)

Thanks TT
Check out makemyled.com.au
What do you reckon about them?
Cheers
Andrew


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