Led Lighting

[Monty-2010]

Hi All,

I've been thinking about LED lighting for my tank, does anyone use this type of lighting and what are your experiences? also where's the best place to buy this stuff?

Pictures of your tanks would be great...

 

[VaegaVic]

Are we talking the new super LEDS or the hobby shop ones?

 

[spike123]

the leds on the betta cube look really well but the hanging lights (dont no the make or the proper name) i personally think look better.leds or a very small light that loocks like a very close together horse shoe look great on a nano though no doubt about it.
regards spike

 

[I Keep Fish]

It depends what were talking about, i'll assume you mean for freshwater fish.
LED's give out so much light, and consume very little energy, so in terms of efficieny, very good!
One problem you may find is algae growth, they give out so much light that its practically impossible to avoid being overun with algae, which is why their not widely used in freshwater.

If you're on about marines(saltwater) then yes, they're second only to MH's in the sense of light output, but you cannot get the "shimmer" effect as you can with other high output light systems, metal halide for example.
In terms of corals, i'd be happy to keep anything under them presuming you are going to buy quite a few of them, but even one light unit will be fine for LPS and soft corals.

 

[Monty-2010]

i'm talking about in terms of freshwater.

I'm not sure of the difference between super LED's and Hobby shope ones...

Can LED's be used for aquatic plants then?

 

[Gaz_S]

I also think it depends on the colour spectrum you can acheive with them, like the different variations of fluorescent lighting. Depending on what you want from your lights thats up to you though.

You could get fancy and introduce dimmers to the circuit if they are promoting algae. All i would say if your going to be building this yourself buy everything from the same supplier if your not sure, so everything will be compatible for example 12V or 24V tranformers will need the correct string of LEDs.

 

[OldMan47]

I would bet heavily that the algae thing is simply not an isue. Instead try looking at the cost of so many lumens of light vs buying the same thing using fluorescents. Once the price of LEDs becomes competitive, I seriously expect most of us will go that way to save costs for electricity. The LED lights are far more efficient at energy conversion.