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T5 Replacement LED Tubes

Each time there is a thread about LED lights the conclusion is more or less the same: good and reliable LED units are expensive. Other combinations are really difficult to find (cheap+good+non Chinese+high output, etc). IME most LED units are really difficult to justify in terms of economic saving if you are already using a T5 luminaire... For example a cheap but reasonable T5 2x24w for a 60 cm tank can be purchased by 70-100 euros. It's LED equivalent begins at 200 euros (not to mention options like ADA, Giesemann, Arcadia, Kesil, etc that can easily cost 2-3x)
So you still have around 100 euros plus the cost of the LED unit to spend on electricity bills.
But I admit this rational point of view can change suddenly when you are at the LFS looking these cool lights... 😉

Jordi
 
parotet said:
Each time there is a thread about LED lights the conclusion is more or less the same: good and reliable LED units are expensive. Other combinations are really difficult to find (cheap+good+non Chinese+high output, etc). IME most LED units are really difficult to justify in terms of economic saving if you are already using a T5 luminaire... For example a cheap but reasonable T5 2x24w for a 60 cm tank can be purchased by 70-100 euros. It's LED equivalent begins at 200 euros (not to mention options like ADA, Giesemann, Arcadia, Kesil, etc that can easily cost 2-3x)
So you still have around 100 euros plus the cost of the LED unit to spend on electricity bills.
But I admit this rational point of view can change suddenly when you are at the LFS looking these cool lights... 😉

Jordi
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agreed! I'm definitely saving money using my £60 UP aqua unit. But in the most obvious way possible: I'm getting less light :facepalm:
 
I've only ever used T8's so I'm used to thinking in terms of WPG. Currently I have 2x 15W over a 31 USG tank so I know I have 1 WPG. My aim is to upgrade to 2 WPG. I could consider buying T5HO's and immediately recognise that 2x 24W T5HO would give me 1.5WPG. It's a simplified view but at least I can understand this.

My problem is with LED's where thinking in terms of WPG doesn't help. I'm struggling to visualise how each LED unit fits in with the scale that I understand. If I buy too strong a light I could end up in unwanted high light territory while too weak a light might not be worth the upgrade. PAR isn't always available so how do I tell?
 
daizeUK said:
I've only ever used T8's so I'm used to thinking in terms of WPG. Currently I have 2x 15W over a 31 USG tank so I know I have 1 WPG. My aim is to upgrade to 2 WPG. I could consider buying T5HO's and immediately recognise that 2x 24W T5HO would give me 1.5WPG. It's a simplified view but at least I can understand this.
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Yes its a very over-simplified view. T5HO is more efficient than T8. 1WPG of T5HO is much more than 1WPG of T8.

daizeUK said:
PAR isn't always available so how do I tell?
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You find PAR values, wait until you see someone elses results, or take the leap. The leap isn't really much of a risk with the big expensive units (most will release PAR values anyways), its just the cheap ones where you can end up gutted
 
daizeUK said:
Are you sure? The AllPondSolutions blurb says that "Using one Easy LED Universal system is the equivalent of using two T5 luminaires on your fish tank." Worshiper above also mentioned it is equivalent to two T5HO's.

The 438mm length is rated at 1738 lumens but I don't know how that compares to T5 😳
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Got a reply from Aqualantis team when I queried the PAR readings.

"For the Easyled marine Blue, the PAR at 0,4m (400-700nm) is 13,11 W/m2."

Not really sure what it means though😕

I have queried if there are any differences in the white tropical one. I will add more on the thread when i get them from the team.
 
Worshiper said:
"For the Easyled marine Blue, the PAR at 0,4m (400-700nm) is 13,11 W/m2."
Click to expand...

I'm not particularly familiar with this so maybe wait for someone better informed to confirm or correct, but if you look at the wikipedia article for PAR there's a little conversion table in "Units." 3rd column, seems to indicate a factor of about 5 to convert to umol per m2 per s, which is what people usually use. 50+ at substrate is considered enough to grow everything quite well I believe
 
I am informed that the price on the Aquatlantis site includes the end caps and the extendable brackets plus postage etc where as that on Amazon is just the light not including packaging and posting. The only option for dimming is to buy the additional controller which dims the light for an hour when it first comes on (sunrise) and an hour before it goes off (sunset).

Cheers,

Steve
 
Hi All,

I have just contacted All Pond Solutions asking for some more information on the specs and pricing for the Easy LED 1200mm T5 replacements and sent some pictures of my current lighting sytem as below.

These are the Eheim Light fittings which take 2 x 54 Watt T5 Tubes. At the moment I have got a combination of Eheim and Guisemann tubes in each fitting. The reason the reflectors are upturned are because at the moment there is too much light when all four are on at the same time, so I have turned the reflectors up and put them on different times with a timer switch which gives a slighly more low tech appearance.

The reason I am looking at LED's is because the lighting from the tubes I am using at the moment is slightly too yellow for me and gives the water a slight colour of "wee" appearance.

DSC02692_zps8ay48qax.jpg

The length between the glass braces is 127cm and the height clearance under the glass covers is only 5.5cm so I need to make sure the Aquatlantis Easy LED 1200mm will fit under the covers.
DSC02693_zpspoddvtlp.jpg

DSC02694_zpsucqwv54b.jpg

All thoughts comments welcome.

Cheers,

Steve
 
if its too yellow, just get a more white bulb? look in the "cheap tubes" sticky in this forum for some ideas
 
REDSTEVEO said:
Ultimately though I suppose it is how the plants react to LED light and whether there is a marked difference or not.
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Light is light. Plants respond and grow in light, it doesn't matter if it comes from T5 HO tubes or expensive LED's. Choose tubes and/or LED's that makes your plants "look good".
 
ian_m said:
Light is light. Plants respond and grow in light, it doesn't matter if it comes from T5 HO tubes or expensive LED's. Choose tubes and/or LED's that makes your plants "look good".
Click to expand...

I agree, I also like the option of being able to allow the lights to come on and go off slowly - sunrise and sunset effect.

Steve
 
REDSTEVEO said:
All Pond Solutions got back to me and said they have no idea how the guy on Amazon can be selling them so cheaply, no profit whatsoever.

On the plus side the depth of these Aquatlantis LED's are only 5cm which means they would fit under the glass lids okay. Still not sure about the £224.00 though:stop:

Steve
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No idea myself 🙂 I too was surprised when I ordered it from Amazon.
They are located in Germany. So it may be profitable for them due to the purchasing power of the pound.
 
Worshiper said:
Got a reply from Aqualantis team when I queried the PAR readings.

"For the Easyled marine Blue, the PAR at 0,4m (400-700nm) is 13,11 W/m2."

Not really sure what it means though😕

I have queried if there are any differences in the white tropical one. I will add more on the thread when i get them from the team.
Click to expand...

Did you ever get a PAR reading for the tropical version?

I'm struggling to make sense of these numbers but I think it's saying the PAR at a depth of 40cm (16 inches) is 13.11 W/m2, which converts to about 60 PAR as we recognise it?
 
No DaiseUK. they haven't responded to my query! 😡 however, the plants have been pearling and seem to be doing well now so I guess that the light is doing what it needs to. 😉

Also worth noting that my plants have low light requirements (E tenellus parvulus and P. Helferi). not sure what plants you are trying to grow.
 
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