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LED Lighting

nachoheeledge

nachoheeledge

Seedling
Joined
2 Nov 2010
Messages
17
Hi everyone, new here but have a question.

I am looking to upgrade my lighting on my tank and read a few reviews of LED lighting solutions.

Have any of you tried them and if so are they worth looking at?

Just trying to weigh my options before I part with cold hard cash :D

Thanks

Dan
 
Hi, no I meant LED lighting on tanks in general. There are some self build options and some you can buy. Just wondered if anyone had used them or not.

I have always stuck with Florescent Tubes until now :)
 
Cool thanks, what would you recommend as a "lower cost" lighting upgrade, like I said I currently use 2 x florescent tubes but they are not giving enough light penetration for all my plants. Everything seems to cost a fortune that I have seen so far :(
 
goto a marine forum find their diy section and copy some of their diy setups just changing the temps to trop temps rather than the marine blue heavy colours. fairly easy todo if you just want simple on/off.

Its still not particularly cheap building your own but considerably cheaper than buying a pre-made
 
Hold on though! what size is your tank, you say you need more light than two tubes?
You can grow plants under quite low light, 2 x fluorescent tubes the length of the tank can grow any plant if the tank is not super deep & 2 x T5 tubs are pretty much standard lighting for a high tech tank.
I use LEDs in combination with T5s but the LEDs are just for dawn & dusk effect.
TMC growbeam & light tiles are very popular LED units....
 
My tank is very deep (compared to the width and depth).

Its a custom build to fit in a alcove, approx size is l x w x d = 300mm x 250mm x 800mm.

My current tubes are 2 x T3 with reflectors (it was all about the fish originally)
 
at that depth i'd be tempted to use gu10 or mr12 spots tbh with quite tight focused lenses perhaps 45 degrees.

Getting light penetration almost a meter down will be hard work with such a small surface area without going with spots of some description or something perhaps like halide but that would scorch the hell out of the top half of the tank.
 
More than likely, the OPs problem has nothing to do with light penetration. He/she is most likely having a CO2 penetration problem. Getting more light will only make the problems worse.

Cheers,
 
ceg4048 said:
More than likely, the OPs problem has nothing to do with light penetration. He/she is most likely having a CO2 penetration problem. Getting more light will only make the problems worse.

Cheers,
Click to expand...

he didn't mention any algae/plant issues though was just a general question. having seen a scaped tall tank on here before though it was very dark at the bottom of the tank compared to the top even when running multple t5's so surely any type of planting is going to require some form of lighting down the bottom
 
ta7eqy8e.jpg


This is my tank, I am running two t8 tubes.
 
My only plant issues are that a lot tend to die. The ones in there now are only a few days old and have holes in the leaves already. I have Ada Amazonia substrate and feed green brighty 3.
 
foxfish said:
A lot depends on what you have planed for the tank as its size only offers a tiny footprint to plant in!
What do you want to do with the tank?
Click to expand...
I just want some plants to grow up the back. I tried a carpet but it failed :(
 
some vallis would go well in a tank that height will grow in low light and doesn't strictly require ferts added (although adding obviously benefits)

I would change to an EI all in one fert stuff it'll be cheaper and stick a power head in the top right pointing down and across to get some improved flow for starters all nice and cheap.

Then carefully select some new plants that grow tall but down spread some amazon swords, vallis, elucondris (sp?) would all work well with just ferts and your current light.

would deffo look at some spots though rather than pure LED strips to get light penetration down if you want it more down the bottom. perhaps just a par 38 bulb would work although aimed at marine and so very blue/purple the plants don't care about the colour.
 
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