Yet Another Lighting Question

[SLIM]

Ok people, heres one to test your lighting knowledge

I have a 260L tank with 2 39w T5HO-6000K
Now i think im right in thinking i have approx 1.1WPG which puts me in the low light bracket.

I have a pressurized co2 system and i dose EI. Most of my plants are doing fantastic, but others are just ok and could look healthier!
I kinda struggle with some red stems.

I want to go more high tech now i have more experience with co2 and up my WPG to 2, maybe even 3WPG!!

The trouble i have is i have no room for more T5's, so iv started lookin into installing some Super Bright Coolwhite 5050 LEDS to run along side my current T5's.
Now i dont want to start drilling holes in my lighting unit and i certainly dont want to mess about with a soldering irons and what not, I just cant be bothered
So im going to take the easy root and silicone in some 5050 LED light strips.

Now a 1 metre strip has 60 LEDS.
To achieve 2WPG how many metres would i need? (Including the current Wattage from my T5's into the equation)
And to achieve 3WPG how many metres would i need.

I was thinking 2 metres (120LED's) maybe 3?(180LEDS) Too many??? Not enough???

And keep in mind the LED's will only be about an inch away from the water surface, it WONT be high light.

Thanks for any input. I want to get ordering as soon as so the sooner i solve this the better.
Thanx again

 

[ian]

i'm no expert on LED's, in fact i know very little about them. Andy is the LED expert around here. However, i can tell you that your 1.1wpg doesn't really ring true (although it is still actual 1.1wpg). The WPG guidelines were a guidence on T12 bulbs, On T8 apparently you can work to this rule loosely, on T5HO it really doesn't apply at all. High output bulbs are actually very strong in the way of PAR, and this is what we need as planted tank keepers.

you might want to PM Supercoley (Andy) regarding this thread.

 

[SLIM]

i'm no expert on LED's, in fact i know very little about them. Andy is the LED expert around here. However, i can tell you that your 1.1wpg doesn't really ring true (although it is still actual 1.1wpg). The WPG guidelines were a guidence on T12 bulbs, On T8 apparently you can work to this rule loosely, on T5HO it really doesn't apply at all. High output bulbs are actually very strong in the way of PAR, and this is what we need as planted tank keepers.

you might want to PM Supercoley (Andy) regarding this thread.

Brilliant thanx ian.
I have messaged supercoley and sandbysetting. Hopefully they can shine some "light" on the matter as im really keen to increase my wpg.

 

[StandbySetting]

It's hard to give you an idea with the LED's as most are different, presumably they're low power LED's, do you have a link to them?

 

[SLIM]

Yes mate one minute

 

[SLIM]

These are them.
Altho these are the non-waterproof version. I posted these for you as they contain abit more information.
These are the actual lights. Same just waterproof.
I emailed the company and they assured me that they are VERY bright. So they say anyway

Im open to other options, LED's, methods etc, i just dont want to make a LED unit from scratch

 

[SLIM]

II think i may of kinda solved this. It turns out, the above LEDs are 72W per 5 meters (330 - 380 lumens per meter)
So iv ordered 3 meters which should give me an extra 43W ontop of my T5s.
Now as Ian said i cant really use the wpg rule, but if im right 78watts of T5HO and 43w of LED should put me at or just over 2 wpg

 

[SuperColey1]

All been said above really so i'll be brief

As per Ian 2 full length T5HO is not low light. I would suggest medium light. 2 x T8 full length good quality (not necessarily aquarium) tubes should be enough for all but a few plants.

Tom Barr grows red plants under low light. I would suggest something else is causing you problems there although there is still quite a lot of debate about light and it's effects on plants.

Try putting a pink light in the 4000-4500K region in instead of one of the white lights. Many will argue that it is this frequency that gets the red plants to turn red. I would suggest not however this colour light will 'enhance' reds so if something is veering towards that colour anyway then the pink light will make it appear more so. I shaln't argue over whether pink lights have actually any benefit in terms of the actual colouration of the plant. I would just suggest that removed form the tank they would probs look the same but different under the different light colourations

Those 5050's will not work for anything other than efect IMO. Forget how many there are and how much W they use. People who 'try' and use standard LED's over a tank tend to use 1000+ over a tank your size and even then the results are negligble. That's not to say they won't work. however I would suggest a further tube would be more efficient than using 10 strips I use 5050's for this kind of thing:

This thread has a picture of a 30cm strip on it half way down and whilst the next poster quite rightly talks about not being able to make comparisons due to cameras altering the picture this looks just like I would expect.
http/www.plantedtank.net/forums/lighting/125140-anyone-using-5050-smd-led-strips-2.html

However I think they should be tested but remember that a 5050 quarter of a watt so if you are using 78W of T5HO that would be a similar wattage usage as 300 5050's or 5 60 LED strips. If you buy 5 of those and don't get as much light from them as the T5HO then you have wasted a fair amount of money because unless you buy a controller capable of running 5 strips then you are in trouble. These strips are very flexible but not flat flexible. The bend round corners where the back/front bends, not side to side so you wouldn't be able to use a 5m strip as the LEDs would all be facing sideway when you bend it!!! TBH it all get a little complicated and expensive when compared to biting the bullet and making a full on dedicated unit.

http/ad.novibo.com/articles/Articles_08SEP2010.pdf

By dedicated unit I mean that if you are thinking about buying 5 strips (£35) plus a controller for 5 strips (£10) plus a power pack to supply the necessary 6Amp @ 12v for 5 strips (£10) just to stick some supplementary lighting to the underside you may as well just fully design your own unit which will be tailor made for your needs.

In theory you could just buy the 5 strips with individual controllers and IR remote however that would mean using separate 12V sources and then of course using individual controllers and sources each of these needs power too so you end up using more power that way.

Bit of a gamble IMO. I will be trying some of the RGB 5050's as backlighting for effect in a couple of months so I may stick some over the top just to see what it does however. I would doubt 1m ( I will use 30 LED per m) strip @ 12W is going to match this 7.45W ( 0.2WPG) output on (now outdated) 3W luxeon LEDs: