Advancement In Lighting Technology!

[wflash3]

I read this post in a different forum, thought i would share it with you guys here: Im sure Ski will love this idea

Hi all,

I just visited South West Florida Marine Aquarium Society website and they have a post of "LED Lighting for reef tanks".
Which they invited Joe Kistel of the company Clearly LED's to be their speaker.
Which you can find here- http/www.swfmas.com/node/98

Wel the LED seems to be a great idea/alternative for our current lighting. On clearly led's site you will read that the LED's last a long time and that they can give the same quality of light as a Metal Halide or Power Compacts.

Here is the Clearly LED website.
http/www.clearlyleds.com/IntroductionOpen.htm

Have you guys ever see a reef tank, which has LED's as the lighting, in person?

Man if these LED's really perform as they say it does. I will be buying a panel for sure. They run on only 13 watts Thats great.

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i think thats awesome! can be a real energy saver! I didint see prices but i hope its a wallet saver too! i cant stand these lighting prices no more!!

flash

 

[sianeds]

Aah yeah I've seen these before. They do indeed look like they will become the standard way of lighting marine tanks in the future.

The research done on LED lighting so far points to it being way more energy efficient and actually produces a more useful light for your corals. It also has a longer life than MH and does not need replacing as often.

As usual I can't for the life of me remember where I read about it. I do remember though that there are commercially available LED lighting systems for marine tanks.

Unfortunately they are still prohibitively expensive at the moment from what I've seen.

 

[raptorrex]

i've been dying to try this sort of lighting system, unfortunatly the cost is still a bit silly. so it is no more than an idea as yet.

 

[sianeds]

There are LED lights available but only little ones designed for highlighting certain areas of your tank. I was hoping to experiment with LED lighting on a coffee table tank I was making but the project has been shelved for now while I set up a bigger tank.

 

[Mr Miagi]

Yeah, theres a pretty short supply of stock LED lighting units for us Marine Enthusiasts, but I have seen the single, and small grouped LED lighting fixtures Sian mentions, mainly on Fleabay etc. I know someone on RTAW DIY'ing his own LED rack, so its not impossible, infact, its probably in the range of many. There are a few products out there though...

http/www.masa.asn.au/phpBB2/viewtopic.ph...p;highlight=led

Advanced Aquarist Article
Advanced Aquarist Images/Graphs

 

[sianeds]

Aah nice one again Mr M that is the article I had in mind. It's well worth reading.

 

[SkiFletch]

It is one of my favorite topics wflash3. LEDs have tremendous potential for saving energy on lighting our tanks. Which in turn saves energy in cooling the tank... All of this is environmentally conscious and much cheaper for operating costs, and that excites me . Unfortunately as mentioned, the cost is currently prohibitive for me at least. I've never seen that Clearly LED company but at $75 for an 8x6" rectangle, thats a LOT of cash. That type of LED can be DIY'ed for significantly cheaper, but those lower output LEDs really dont have a lot of "punch" for deeper tanks. PFO makes a high output LED system called "Solaris" that performs comparably to halide lighting from a PAR standpoint, but uses multiple times less energy. However at $2000 for the cheap models... A little expensive

 

[Danno]

It would be nice if they could mass produce them, that way the cost would plummet.

 

[wflash3]

I believe prices are this high because it just got on the market. With it being a much better lighting source and possibly will outperform the other forms of lighting, they think people will buy it all almost any price. Once LED lighting becomes the obvious for many aquarists, the price will certainly drop IMO.

flash

 

[DarrenUnwin]

Great thread here,

I have priced up the setup for my 30 gallon tank and with the 6 panels it would be atleast £270 for the equipment let alone shipping etc, a bit out of my price range at the moment Although the cost isnt that bad when you look at having to fork out for the cost of a cooler to deal with the heat from T5 and MH.

Could anyone answer whether these units could be linked to a auto dimmer so that they could simulate dawn and dusk, that would be a great way of simulating nature for a reef tank.

 

[raptorrex]

Great thread here,

I have priced up the setup for my 30 gallon tank and with the 6 panels it would be atleast £270 for the equipment let alone shipping etc, a bit out of my price range at the moment Although the cost isnt that bad when you look at having to fork out for the cost of a cooler to deal with the heat from T5 and MH.

Could anyone answer whether these units could be linked to a auto dimmer so that they could simulate dawn and dusk, that would be a great way of simulating nature for a reef tank.

there are a few, you can get a basic usb control unit for about £30. but the price just sky rockets after that. dimmers for led's are a bit different from what we are used to. they do not reduce the voltage, as you may expect, they simply switch the led off and on rapidly, causing the dimming effect.

 

[boshank23]

a mate of mine has been making his own LED light for ages now, he built himself a kinda luminare with 24Watts of LED's for his FW tank.

did the job really well, they got a bit hotter than expected though so i would gather these units have fans in them, heat sinks or both.

only thing that stopped me asking him to make some for my marine tank was we couldn't find any LED's above 6K rating.

 

[andywg]

This is an amazing new technology.

I just wish someone had mentioned it sooner

Good to see it is still being discussed and moved on.

I know a fair few on Reef Central have made DIY LED racks, though you have to get everything right and use decent components or you end up burning out the LEDs.

 

[Underwurlde]

Unlike flourescent lighting, dimming LEDs is not a problem. Extra electronics will be needed to either limit the current supplied or some sort of PWM signal. Nothing I couldn't sketch on the back of a pack of fags.

It is surprising how expensive these units are. I wonder what specific LED types are being used.... LEDs that are used on (for example) mobile phones with cameras for the flash light chuck out blinding amounts of light.

Is there a link to the DIY LED racks mentioned above?

Andy

 

[Danno]

I was looking around on some computer hardware suppliers and I can't find anywhere that would sell LED bulbs any cheaper then $0.99. I think they might remain expensive now that I think of it.