# led lighting



## baos (Jul 3, 2009)

I was thinking of getting or building something like this.. Just wondering what everyone's opinion is?

http://cgi.ebay.ca/2290p-White-LED-...emQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item2ea95d510a


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## queijoman (Jun 23, 2008)

There are several members of the forum who have made LED light fixtures for their tanks and say that they have good results growing plants and such. Good luck!


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## ianryeng (Dec 22, 2008)

I would be hesitant to buy something like that, there are no lumen or par values provided (only mcd... which means nothing in terms of plants).

I do agree that LED's are a great investment for aquarium lighting, but for that price you could build a massive array of cree led's that are proven to be a viable lighting solution for planted tanks.

I am currently building an array for my SW tank, what size tank do you intend on lighting with this LED array? Depth will be the biggest issue for such small led's.

Here is some further reading on the subject:

LED Planted Aquarium Article

Gomers Luxeon Project

Another Thread Debating LED Lighting

I would definitely recommend serious consideration of building an LED fixture, they are much cheaper if you do them yourself and there are a lot of people who can help you out along the way if you chose to. HB 3W LED's are the way to go (Cree, Luxeon, Seoul, Ect), but expensive up front but you wont have to buy bulbs anymore and the LED's last ~50,000 hours so you will get about 10+ years out of them.


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## El Exorcisto (Aug 10, 2006)

Skip the little nickle store LEDs, they really suck. Pick up some Crees or Luxeons and some drivers. You'll have a cool-running halide when you're done, that uses about 1/4 the juice.


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## baos (Jul 3, 2009)

El Exorcisto said:


> Skip the little nickle store LEDs, they really suck. Pick up some Crees or Luxeons and some drivers. You'll have a cool-running halide when you're done, that uses about 1/4 the juice.


I looked at this one.. but with $300 for the leds alone.. it just isn't cost effective. vs the other one and $200 for a 90 gallon aquarium.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1587273


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## baos (Jul 3, 2009)

I was also wondering which colors to use. It seems that red is the best for growing these plants.. With some blue.


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## El Exorcisto (Aug 10, 2006)

There is a reason they cost more... They are WAY better product. I built a little pendant with crap LEDs and it sucks. Use 5 Crees and it produces more light in a better spectrum. Cree's bright whites are much higher in PAR than most others as well.


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## MoonFish (Feb 12, 2006)

baos said:


> I looked at this one.. but with $300 for the leds alone.. it just isn't cost effective. vs the other one and $200 for a 90 gallon aquarium.
> 
> http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1587273


 It's easy to overdrive the 5mm's and then they won't last that long. I think it would work if the tank wasn't that deep. There are pictures on one of these sites.

Second post, the LEd prices are inflated. You can order them from China and wait a month. Yeah it sucks to wait but it's about 1/2 that price. There are separate power supplies and drivers and you don't need to buy both of them. If you don't drive the emitters that hard, you need less heatsink. The 3" spacing is just used to blend the white and blue light so there aren't colored spots. In the reef projects I read about so far, they haven't ended up driving the emitters that hard which means to me, you could have used a wider spacing if you weren't worried about the color blending.

The Chinese new year is coming up and orders will be really slow.


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## El Exorcisto (Aug 10, 2006)

You can get 3 watt Luxeon IIIs on ebay now for a great price, since they are being discontinued and replaced by the Rebels. I bought 5 for $20 to put with 3 Crees. Once I get home to my drivers I'll see how bright 24 watts of LED light really is.


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## baos (Jul 3, 2009)

I bought one of those 229led lights as a test to see if it could grow with the low wattage. So far it seems on par with 2 t5ho. Here are my 2 pictures which give you an idea of what exactly it lights. If I were to build this light myself I would add some white leds as the red/blue are not very esthetically pleasing.

side by side with 2t5ho (I would have 4 but 2 just died)









just the led panel


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## dianainOH (Mar 21, 2009)

I have cheapo aquarium hoods in which I have replaced the florescent tubes with standard household (e27) fittings. I use coiled florescent bulbs in them currently. Has anyone out there tried the screw in led bulbs in their fixtures? How did it work? I have 4 available sockets over my 55 and 3 over my 29. Would I be able to get enough light on either of these tanks using my existing sockets or would I have to add more? Thanks!


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## baos (Jul 3, 2009)

Just remember these led lights are very focused. you don't want to be reflecting the light, instead you want to point the light where you would like it to go. I recently ordered some 5mm leds off ebay at about 7cents each. I also theorize that the red leds are extremely important.


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## dianainOH (Mar 21, 2009)

Thanks!
I think I'll just stick to what I have for now. Let us know how your new lighting works. If you come up with a cheap effective way to set it up, I would love to hear about it. I may get ambitious and decide to build something once I get some of my house fixit projects out of the way.


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## baos (Jul 3, 2009)

I've found the leds for 7 cents to be of decent quality so I ordered 1100 more. I currently plan to outfit my 90 gallon tank with 1000 red leds, 200 blue leds, 100 white leds. For the experiment I will use no t5ho lighting. Any sunlight coming in is not direct as my window faces north. I will also probably create a howto section with a parts list. I understand that most of our aquarium aquatic plants come from shallow waters in Florida(correct me if I'm wrong) where red light would penetrate.


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## Tuiflies (Jan 21, 2010)

dianainOH said:


> I have cheapo aquarium hoods in which I have replaced the florescent tubes with standard household (e27) fittings. I use coiled florescent bulbs in them currently. Has anyone out there tried the screw in led bulbs in their fixtures? How did it work? I have 4 available sockets over my 55 and 3 over my 29. Would I be able to get enough light on either of these tanks using my existing sockets or would I have to add more? Thanks!


I managed to get four screw type sockets into my hood for a 29G. Before I put them in I lined the hood with tin tape as a cheap reflector. I'm using two 13W 5000k bulbs with two 15W 6500k bulbs and they're working great. If you wanted more light you could use 25W bulbs.


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