Reef Lighting

[dayzofspeed]

when looking for lights for a possible reef aquarium what should i be looking for, is it the k number or the lumens eg i just found a light advertised as producing 250 lumens and apparently emits light more than equal to a 50w halogen, is this sufficient lighting for coral, please excuse me if its a stupid question or way off the mark as i am a total novice with marine. forgot to mention its a white led daylight consisting of 60 individual leds

 

[seffieuk]

Show us what you are looking for and tell us what you would like to keep, i'm sorry, I think you have already told us, but can i just check?

Seffie x

 

[dayzofspeed]

wow that was a fast answer seffie many thanks, i'm not keeping anything yet just doing lots of reading but would like to set up a beginners reef in the near future. this is the bulb its a bulb i found on ebay gu10 led cool white 250 lumens but i cant for the life of me get a link as i may be going diy on this tank i was wondering if a bank of these would do the trick

 

[seffieuk]

Oh heck, diy lighing............. im backing out of this one

Someone did a diy lighting rig on here some time ago, I will go have a look and see if I can find it for you

Seffie x

here is a start, but it ws not what i was looking for:

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/311178-hardware-of-the-month-lighting/page__hl__diy%20led%20lighting__fromsearch__1

I will keep looking

 

[dayzofspeed]

ok ta

 

[chr15_8]

I wouldn't of thought those LED's will produce enough light.

For a decent GU10 led lamp it will cost you around £15+ and even then i don't think you would have enough PAR for the corals. (PAR is the usable light from what i understand)

Main thing we need to know if the depth of the tank and the type of corals you want to keep. For optimum growth you want a lamp around 6,500k however not many people like this colour so go with 10,000k tubes with a few blues.

For a proper LED you will need to search for individual cree leds. Then they will need heat sinks + optics.

 

[kj23502]

from what i've been told 10k is about the yellowest you want to go. Provides good growth and doesn't look like pee water too bad. I prefer 14k and 20k lights(blue and bluer). As for leds they are awesome, but expensive. I'd go that route if I had the $$. But I'm sticking w/my 250 w halides for now.

and...do they have actinic in led's? You could go with a lower kelvin and add actinic so it looks blue.

 

[dayzofspeed]

what about halogen does anyone use these? or even security lights, god, think i need a break, so much to take in, think my head is gonna explode, i cant seem to get my head round the lighting side of things,it's the only part thats confusing the hell out of me, very scientific it seems. ok could i for example use a 250w security lamp providing i find a bulb with at least 10000k output (and would i even be able to just swap the bulbs over) and say an actinic tube? i apologise if i am getting on peoples nerves with these never ending questions, i need to find alternative lighting if i'm to persuade the missus we can afford marine at all

 

[ben1987]

the security halogen lights have been used before. but they are crap tbh. the reflectors are quite small so at the 12" you may run it above the tank you will get really poor light spread. You can often pick up a second hand 150W metal halide with bulb for around £50

 

[ozzie2011]

From a quick scan on the net the better quality security lights only offer between 3000 and 6000 kelvin. More time and a better search may provide other results but in my opinion if these were doable then everyone would get there lights from B&Q for £20 instead of hundreds on halides.

Good luck