Lighting Suggestion?

[Krish's Fishes]

Hello,

I am planning on setting up a low tech tank mainly planted with crypts, java fern, and dawf sag, however, it is going to be a blackwater aquarium (45cmx30cmx30cm). I kind of like led's but I am not too sure how many watts I need.

 

[zozo]

Hi,

LEDs and Watts are kinda unreliable. What you need to look out for are the Lumen specs or the Lumen p/watt specs.

Example do you like to go for SMD LED strips, these are often rated as Lumen per single led bead on the strip.
Then multiply the numbers of LEDs x lumen to get a total. 45cm strip could contain 25 LED beads x 50 lumen per bead is 1250 lumen.

COB LED units are often rated with total lumen output or in Lumen p/watt, then if it's 100 lumens per watt and the unit is 20 watt then its 2000 lumen.

I can go on a bit since there are quite some other LED types available. But i think you get the picture.

How many lumens you would need for your specific setup is hard to say. It is best to take dimmable LED versions and over calculate it a bit. Let us say if 1200 lumen for a low energy blackwater tank is generally considered about enough. Then double that and use a dimmer. It's easy to dim to much light, but not enoug then you need to buy new ones.

https://tropica.com/en/guide/make-your-aquarium-a-success/light/

 

[Krish's Fishes]

Hi,

Sorry for the very late reply, thank you for explaining lumens to me! That tropica link was very useful and I think I am going to go for a Twinstar LED 300EA and a dimmer to go a long with it.

 

[Siege]

Hi @Krish's Fishes

Why not the 450E (adjustable or not).

It’ll give you a better spread of light. You will not need the S model unless you would like to go high energy or if you wanted to pay the extra (it is a more powerful and redder light).

I wouldn’t recommend the C model. It is VERY pink and not much cheaper than the E model.

Get the full controller, rather than the dimmer, it is very good and worth the small extra!

Hope that gives you food for thought!

 

[Krish's Fishes]

Hi @Siege,

I have gone with the 450EA and a dimmer controller too! Thank you for the suggestion, I hope with the dimmer I can get around 20-25 Lumen per liter.