# LED lighting the way to go?



## ringram (Jan 10, 2005)

I'm getting back into the hobby after a few year absence.
It seems that LED lights have become a mainstay (and even preferred) over that time.

Are LED lights really the way to go for high light plants?
I'm talking about carpeting plants like HC or elatine trianda, plus red stem plants, etc.

I realize LED provides good wattage, low power consumption and low heat, all of which interest me.
It's a little pricey, but sounds like it's worth it if these things are all true.

Opinions? I've been reading this site (and another) the past couple days and am still a little confused as to whether LED or T5HO would be the way to go for my 60P Amano tank (~18g).

Thanks in advance!
-Ryan


P.S. Looks like I need to update my signature, as the tanks listed there I haven't had for a while ;P


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## Tugg (Jul 28, 2013)

The hardest part with the LED craze is trusting the manufacturer. Some units give great PAR, while others are useless. The T5HOs are pretty tried and true.

For LEDs, I've heard and seen good results from Finnex.


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## oblongshrimp (Aug 8, 2006)

I bought an LED from Buildmyled.com about a month ago and the growth difference was fantastic! Everything looks way better and way healthier. Their fixtures are also much smaller and slimmer then the Tek T5 light I had. That being said they are more expensive then others out there but you pay for quality and they have it.


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## ObiQuiet (Oct 9, 2009)

oblongshrimp said:


> I bought an LED from Buildmyled.com about a month ago


Which color temp did you get?


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## oblongshrimp (Aug 8, 2006)

I got the Dutch one. It doesn't completely spread across the 18 depth of the tank but I knew that may be an issue when I got it. It still works awesome and I may end up getting a second one at some point so I get better light spread. The 10k one has higher par values but the plants colors are supposed to look better with the dutch.

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

Ryan,

LED are thought to be something special only because they look sleek. Other lights (fluorescent and halogens) are way ahead of LED fixtures as far as useful light is concerned (PAR).

You can get a $14 halogen bulb that requires no ballast and screws in a standard socket. It has a monstrous PAR (equal to a $600 LED fixture). Or you can get T5HO setup which will blow away a $250 LED setup for about $130.

Comparisons or not the truth is that you do not need more than 80 PAR at the bottom to grow carpet plants. LEDs can provide that because it is not a very high value. But not all LEDs can do that. Note that the good PAR readings that some (not all) manufacturers provide are not measured through water AND are measured right under the LED. 6-8" away from the center an LED fades rapidly. 

Prepare to pay a good price for a good LED fixture if you want a real, good one. At the end you won one thing - a sleek looking fixture that does what non-LED setups can do for much less.

And no, LEDs do not last as long as everybody believes. They will produce an underwater shimmer but not something to write home about.

If you like a sleek look make yourself believe that plants like sleek too. Everybody wins.


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## ObiQuiet (Oct 9, 2009)

See this thread, too.

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/lighting/85222-what-do-i-need-know-about.html#post638246


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## Cavan Allen (Jul 22, 2004)

ringram said:


> Are LED lights really the way to go for high light plants?
> I'm talking about carpeting plants like HC or elatine trianda, plus red stem plants, etc.


They are not the only way, but a very good one, provided you get the right fixture.



ringram said:


> I realize LED provides good wattage, low power consumption and low heat, all of which interest me.
> It's a little pricey, but sounds like it's worth it if these things are all true.


It is true, but it doesn't have to be expensive. You'll like not having to replace bulbs so often and having light levels that are more stable.



ringram said:


> Opinions? I've been reading this site (and another) the past couple days and am still a little confused as to whether LED or T5HO would be the way to go for my 60P Amano tank (~18g).


There are many ways to go about it, but I think the best fixtures are those that you make yourself. Of course, that requires some DIY ability and more research, but I think it's worth it. I'll be glad to answer any more specific questions if you have them.


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## Cavan Allen (Jul 22, 2004)

niko said:


> LED are thought to be something special only because they look sleek. Other lights (fluorescent and halogens) are way ahead of LED fixtures as far as useful light is concerned (PAR).


Nonsense. See above.



niko said:


> And no, LEDs do not last as long as everybody believes.


Forever? No. Much, much longer than T5s? Yes.



niko said:


> They will produce an underwater shimmer but not something to write home about.


I'm somewhat amused that you keep repeating that given that you apparently have little or no real experience with a good LED fixture and that right behind me is my 40 gallon that I can assure you has plenty of shimmer; in fact, it has about as much as the halide fixture I used to have. Anyway, shimmer depends on a few things, namely how close together the LEDs are, how high they are mounted and how much surface rippling there is. Many commercial and pre-made fixtures are made to be mounted low and have more (but weaker) LEDs packed into a tighter space. Even some of those have pretty good shimmer. Of course, how would you know any of that, right?


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## ringram (Jan 10, 2005)

Cavan (or anyone else) -

As long as the LEDs have high enough PAR to penetrate to the surface of the substrate, that's all I really care about. It's not like the tank is that high either (12"?), although I would probably have it suspended at least a few inches above, for even light distribution.

I had a Tek T5HO on my last tank (90g) with good results. They didn't get too hot and the PAR was very good...almost too good. lol. Some of the plants (blyxa japonica for one) would even get a little bronze or reddish colored.

I'll probably peruse the DIY section and try making a stand. It's only about 20g, so how hard can it be? I'm not much of a handyman/woodworker, but I have tools and I follow directions well.  It would probably take me a weekend or two to finish what a skilled builder could make in a few hours, but I digress..

How many LEDs and/or what brand would you recommend? I've always liked the look of 10,000K combined with 6700K bulbs, so I assume they have this available in LED also. As far as brands, a couple people mentioned Finnex and BuildmyLED, so I'll take a look at those.

I'm not looking to spend a fortune, but I'm willing to spend some money if it's good quality. It has to look nice and pass the wife test


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## Cavan Allen (Jul 22, 2004)

I built mine through rapidled. I used a mix of neutral and cool whites, with a few royal blue mixed in. My heat sinks are a bit shorter than the tank, though I think slightly longer ones would have been better. You can even get heat sinks the same footprint as the tank itself, but you will always have to have the same length wire between each and spread the LEDs out evenly. I have 24 in total, but know that the ones they sell are pretty strong. I would not use LEDs without a dimmer; one of the primary advantages is that you can make them whatever strength you want them to be. They have a controller for that function that's inexpensive and works well.


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## AKnickolai (Nov 30, 2007)

I use the LED strips from AH Supply (great place for DIY lights) in one of my tanks. I don't have a PAR meter, but based on the data I have seen, I'm looking at 40-50 PAR at my substrate level. The color rendering under these lights is good and I'm growing carpet plants just fine. Heat isn't an issue as the lamp is really well designed and never gets more than slightly warm to the touch. 

I will admit there is a bit of a "cool" factor to having the LED's. A similarly priced T5HO kit would have cranked out more light and let me adjust the color temp by selecting difference bulbs, at a cost of more power usage and constant bulb replacement. Honestly, the MOST impressed I've been with lights lately have been from the 8 to 10 inch dome clamp lights I bought from Lowes. These things REALLY bring the light for a low cost, and you get some flexibility in bulb temperature (5000K and 6500K are readily available in various wattages).


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## micheljq (Mar 25, 2013)

AKnickolai said:


> I will admit there is a bit of a "cool" factor to having the LED's.


Anyway there was also a "cool" factor when the first T5HO fixtures were out, as it is with any new technology or product.

Michel.


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## Soup12 (Nov 1, 2013)

i reccommend finnex. Pretty much only lights I use on all my tanks


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## TropTrea (Jan 10, 2014)

I had did a lot of experimentation years ago with plant lighting however the last 12 years I have concentrated more on reef lighting. 

Some notes for rough comparison. With T-5 lighting I was able to get 200 par at the substrate on a 24" tall tanks using just under 5 Watts per gallon. As I have converted some of my reef tanks to LED lighting I can maintain this same level of lighting with just over 2 watts per gallon.

Spectrum issues though are one thing with LED's. In a Reef tank you want at least 75% of your light in the 420 to 480 nm range. The blue LED's are very narrow banded and there are few different wavelengths available from the quality LED manufacturers. Therefore I found it is best on a Reef to mix LED's with the special Blue T-5 bulbs.

As far as the Planted tank is concerned the Full spectrum LED's should cover all the frequencies required for plants. Since most peoples goal is around 80 PAR at the substrate if you do a comparison and 3 watts per gallon gave 200 par then we would only need about 0.80 watts per gallon for a planted tank. But since we are using full spectrum LED's almost exclusively with Planted tanks this formula might not hold water as well.

The other thing to consider is that all LED's are not the same. Some quality manufacturers are running an average of 120 lumns per watt. While other brands of similar LED's are barely reaching 80 lumns per watt. Even similar LED's from the same manufacturer with different K temperatures will vary considerably in lumns rating. I can only assume that these changes in lumns also reflect in changes in PAR. 

Going back to my old tanks I used to get the best plant results using 2 GE Chroma 50 bulbs and 1 GE 6,000K daylight bulb. This was roughly 120 watts on a 75 gallon tank with CO2, or 1.5 Watts per gallon. Looking at this the the change in lighting on a reef it would not surprise me if the .8 watts per gallon will work with LED's. 

I;'m slowly working on converting some of my Reef tanks back to Planted tanks. I intend to use LEd lighting exclusively for these tanks. Initialy on a 120 gallon I'm thinking or running 60 watts of neutral whites (4,500K), and 60 Watts of Cool Whites (6,500K). Only time will tell how well this works out.


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

Hm, some things are not so straight forward:

1. Size of the tank - limits the T5HO installation and the PAR.
To get 5 wpg for an 6 ft long X 2 ft wide tank I have to blast the tank with 900 watts of T5HO. That means eleven 80 watt T5HO bulbs. Each bulb has an individual reflector that is 3" wide. The old style reflectors where 2.5" wide but you cannot find them any more. So 11 bulbs X 3 inches = 33 inches. So over my 24" wide tank I can put only 7.5 bulbs with individual reflectors. That's 600 watts of light. That may get me 80-100 PAR at a depth of 24". Cost for that will be $165 for the bulbs + $165 for the reflectors, and $70 for 2 Workhorse 7 ballasts = $400. Miscelaneous hardware added - about $500 total.

I can remove the reflectors and cram 11 bulbs side by side. Then their efficiency goes out of the window. 9 without reflectors will equal 6 with reflectors.

2. LED

I'd like to see the LED fixture that produces 200 PAR at 24" depth. It will cost way above $500.

Truth about LED is that to get 80-100 PAR at 24" depth I will need at least 800 watts. Because of the bad light spread that LED have a 6'x2'x2' tank will have to have lots of LED. What is the price of such a fixture? It will not run as cool as the T5HO, not even close. It will most likely use fans or have a special heat sink that will make the fixture even more expensive.

The above is my take on LED and the planted tank hobby. You can do anything you want with money but planted tank enthusiasts are cheap. Here's a $1500 solution using LED - $465 per fixture and you need 3. And don't look for wattage of each fixture - all you need is "3 fixtures" for something called "Ultra High Light". Geez:
http://www.buildmyled.com/iwagumi-7000k-xb-series/

No matter what I think I know for sure that 0.8 wpg of LED will not give you PAR 80 at 24" depth. That would mean that I can put 180 watts of LED over my 180 and get PAR 80. That is simply not happening over the entire bottom of the tank. An area of about 1 square foot maybe.

Please understand something - the fascination with LED has been pushed by the companies that sell them. Both T5HO and the new generation halogens blow LEDs out of the water. For now LEDs work well if you can afford the high price tag. That's all there is to it. But in the planted tank hobby most people don't know any better than to look for shortcuts, "amazing" cheap tricks, and follow fads. That's what I really dislike, not your endeavor to prove that LED work for planted tanks.


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## TropTrea (Jan 10, 2014)

niko said:


> Hm, some things are not so straight forward:
> 
> 1. Size of the tank - limits the T5HO installation and the PAR.
> To get 5 wpg for an 6 ft long X 2 ft wide tank I have to blast the tank with 900 watts of T5HO. That means eleven 80 watt T5HO bulbs. Each bulb has an individual reflector that is 3" wide. The old style reflectors where 2.5" wide but you cannot find them any more. So 11 bulbs X 3 inches = 33 inches. So over my 24" wide tank I can put only 7.5 bulbs with individual reflectors. That's 600 watts of light. That may get me 80-100 PAR at a depth of 24". Cost for that will be $165 for the bulbs + $165 for the reflectors, and $70 for 2 Workhorse 7 ballasts = $400. Miscelaneous hardware added - about $500 total.
> ...


I'll disagree here as an ATI Sunpower 8 Bulb fixture is only 17.5 inches wide with 8 separate reflectors. Yes they are not inexpensive (just under $700) but they produce a lot of light. and can easily brig the PAR up near the 200 range with the correct bulb selection.



niko said:


> 2. LED
> 
> I'd like to see the LED fixture that produces 200 PAR at 24" depth. It will cost way above $500.
> 
> Truth about LED is that to get 80-100 PAR at 24" depth I will need at least 800 watts. Because of the bad light spread that LED have a 6'x2'x2' tank will have to have lots of LED. What is the price of such a fixture? It will not run as cool as the T5HO, not even close. It will most likely use fans or have a special heat sink that will make the fixture even more expensive.


If were two years in the past I would agree with you that it would be difficult to get that much light from LED's. However now you can get LED's up to 10 Watts each for the "full spectrum whites" and with a build it your self system you could light your tank aiming in the range of 80 PAR for probably in the $300 range. Yes commercial LED fixtures are much more expensive.

I have built roughly a dozen LED fixtures in the past three years. The cooling is a fallacy as all my LED systems have run much cooler than T-5's without the use of Fans. The secret is how you mount the LED's and how much surface area you give them for cooling.

Most of the LED sites are pushing high cost heat sinks that are really required with proper planning. But this is in there effort to make a buck in my mind. Sure some LED's produce more heat per watt per than others but these are usually the lower quality lower light output LED's that were the mainstay 2 or 3 years ago.



niko said:


> The above is my take on LED and the planted tank hobby. You can do anything you want with money but planted tank enthusiasts are cheap. Here's a $1500 solution using LED - $465 per fixture and you need 3. And don't look for wattage of each fixture - all you need is "3 fixtures" for something called "Ultra High Light". Geez:
> http://www.buildmyled.com/iwagumi-7000k-xb-series/
> 
> No matter what I think I know for sure that 0.8 wpg of LED will not give you PAR 80 at 24" depth. That would mean that I can put 180 watts of LED over my 180 and get PAR 80. That is simply not happening over the entire bottom of the tank. An area of about 1 square foot maybe.
> ...


Yes going with commercial LED fixtures will cost you more than building your own. For the spread on a tank as long as yours yes you would need three commercial fixtures. But there are some nice fixtures out there today that would cost you as much money as your listing.

For me the DIY reasoning is something that corresponds with what you say about the planted tank enthusiasts. Yes I am cheap but before I do a build it myself projects I put two criteria that I must meet before hand these are can I make it better than what is out there on the market, and can I do it for less than what it would cost me to buy it rebuilt.

1. with LED's getting a better product is easy as the technology is improving faster you or I can type. When a commercial fixture is put on the market it needs to go through various steps to get approval and when it finally released it has technology that is at least a year old., With a DIY LED fixture I can use the latest LED's that just hit the market last week.

2. Yes I'm cheap but only to a point. I want to find the cheapest route to create the best device to get the job done. With LED's today that easy to do on the Do it yourself level. Three years ago When I built my first LED fixture it was roughly 1/4 of the cost for a comparable commercial fixture. Today that margin is probably closer to 1/2 the cost. LED fixtures have improved and the cost has come down. A single LED that costed $8.00 in 2010 can now be replaced with one that costs $4.00 and produces more than twice the light per watt.


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## Mike_W (Jan 4, 2014)

Wow. A lot of sweeping generalizations, here...

There are good and bad examples of all sources, and some have features that are more (or less) desirable than others. I think it's unfair to say "this sucks" or "that sucks" as a blanket statement.

You can get some pretty awful (or amazing) lamps no matter what the types. Also, consider some of those colors drift over time....and some need replacing more often, etc..

I'm a diehard DIY'er, so in order to get the LED light I wanted with my budget, I retrofitted the 5500k strips, and drivers, into an old T5 fixture that needed a new lamp and ballast. Only time will tell how well this will grow _plants_, but I can say it looks amazing to _my_ eyes. I did this for less money than the cost of a new (decent) T5 fixture.


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## TropTrea (Jan 10, 2014)

Mike_W said:


> I'm a diehard DIY'er, so in order to get the LED light I wanted with my budget, I retrofitted the 5500k strips, and drivers, into an old T5 fixture that needed a new lamp and ballast. Only time will tell how well this will grow _plants_, but I can say it looks amazing to _my_ eyes. I did this for less money than the cost of a new (decent) T5 fixture.


This has a lot to do with why I go into it. I saw some fantastically lit reef tanks with LEDs that made the most expensive T-5's and MH's look bad. But then I saw the prices of the fixtures in the $3,000 range years ago I simple started researching it more. then I got a contract to evaluate some under the counter LED lights and this opened some new doors for me to further my research. My first build was a moonlight strip that costed me under $50.00 however the intensity was greater than my T-5 dawn to dusk lights.

I'm basically a cheapskate when it comes to spending. I do not need lights with bhunder storm mode every 5th day, or that track the phases of the moon. And if you take out all the unnecessary gizmos that they are starting to put in LED lights your so right they can be built at home for a fraction of the cost of any commercial fixture other than incandescent.

Then look at the long range savings. Replacing florescent or MY bulbs every 9 months to 1 year compared to the 3 years plus since I had my LED's without out a replacement. As well as the difference in energy cost.


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