Need suggestions for lights on a 300 gallon planted tank.

[Magnum Man]

Amazon.com

 

[Colin_T]

My lights are over 10 years old. Been repaired once. Local pet shop has closed, and my area has no kind of shops to repair. I have two 5ft lights with blue and white leds. At this time, one has working blue and the other has whites sort of working. I have added an 8ft led shop light. However, getting a lot of algae.

What sort of algae?
How many live plants do you have?
Can you post a picture of the entire tank with the lights on?

Algae grows from an imbalance between light, nutrients and live plants. Too much light or nutrients with not enough plants will encourage algae.

 

[Ceez]

Most likely to use LEDS. Do you think the one you linked will be strong enough for my depth of 30"s?

I found this earlier. Par requirements for growing certain types of plants. Maybe this can help you to find a lights that meet the requirements you specifically have.

Problem is most of the cheaper led lights are made to work at a depth of 19-24" max. Lot of people swear by the fluval plant 3.0 which is rated by fluval for depths of 24-34". I've found a few par tests that are very similar in numbers and disagree. What it does show is that the fluval has more power to give you better par ratings at depth than it's competitors in that price range.

This is why I went with a higher end light like the kessil because it can give me the necessary light needed to grow plants at 38" which brings on a whole slew of different problems as well. Having light powerful enough to grow plants at depths of 24" + can also be too much for fish and plants that live in the top of the water column. Damned if you do, damned if you dont..

 

[anewbie]

I've gone through this issue and while I have some ghl lx7004/7006 lights (very expensive and a royal pia to use); the light i actually settled on as best bang for buck as well as other issue are the AI freshwater blade. They are stronger than fluval; more neutral in spectrum and cheaper than more expensive lights like chirios and ghl. in addition they have a large number of form factors. You did not provide the dimension of your tank but if the aquarium is 2ft or 4ft deep you can hang the lights front to back; if the tank is 6 feet long they also have a 6 foot model. However the weak point is no 3 foot unit which means 40B and 3 feet wide aquariums are week points.
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THe fluval plant 3.0 does have some advantage being ip68 and 3 year warranty. Another popular light is chiros weak - i've not used it so no comments on it.

Kessil last time i priced these things fall into the ghl price range. Anyway of the lights i've used first hand i've been most happy with the ai freshwater blades - i've used models from the following vendors:
onf
fluval
chirios
hygger
ghl
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Caveat the ai is a new model and my oldest is only around 18 months; also folks with salt water aquriums have complain that one of the salt water models is not balanced right to left (be sure to get the freshwater model). While LED can last a very long time the weak points of most electronics including led lights are the power supply circuits.
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Btw the GHL hanging kit work really well the freshwater blade.