I also started out with smd 5050 they are pretty strong but have a little trouble penetrating the water colum to the bottom. just not enough for 40 cm hight and my plant choice.
Exchanged them with the hard alloy pcb strip with the smd 8520 dual chip LED - 72 LED 18 watt p/meter - 60 lum p/led they are available in 0,5 meter or 1 meter strip. You'll find them from different manufacturers with diffent lum specs in a range from 15 lum to 60 lum p/led. The korea dual chips are the brightest at the moment 60 lum p/led. I took the Cool White color range 7000/12000k and must say they still have pretty much red spectrum in them slightly violet blue led color. Invironmental color is good.
I bought a batch of 5 strips 0.5 meter p/strip in alluminium shell with clear transparent cover and mountable side caps for €18.
US $8.49 |50cm 8520 LED Hard Rigid Strip lamp High bright DC 12V 36 SMD Korea 2 chips 18W/M Bar Light with U Aluminium shell +pc cover|led hard|bar lightled hard rigid - AliExpress
Using them now above the tank a combination with 2 x 0.5 meter pcb strips smd 7020 - 20 watt p/meter - 40 lum p/led cool white 10000k and 2 of above
and 1 smd 5050 rgb 7 watt in the middle for the ambient light in the evening and morning.
I'm pretty impressed, have some Rotala Mexicana Goyas as carpet, they begin to grow denser now and form a red hue now, also the new rotala indica shoots are more compact now. And not runing them all on 100%.. The smd 5050 came a bit short for that.
Whit those new 8520 version you could say they have actualy 144 leds, because it's a dual chip led as 2 smaller leds combined in 1 lens.