# Led Aquarium Lighting



## [email protected]° (Jun 16, 2004)

I have been seeing more and more promotions for LED aquarium lighting out there.

Has anyone here made the leap or considering it?

I myself once I get up and running am primarily a Piranha, and predatory freshwater keeper. I do like and have kept live plants and would like to try my skills at a reef one day but with what I keep now, and plan to keep I don't "NEED" LED's

That said, they say LED's make the tank look amazing, and they do save on the all mighty electric bill that so heavily taxes our hobby...

LED's anyone???


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## Plowboy (Apr 9, 2008)

I researched building my own. What I gathered was, LEDs are not much more efficient than florescent (somewhere around 80-100 lumens per watt). The beauty of them is LEDs can reproduce one exact(ish) wavelength of light. If you can match the wavelength of light to what the plants need *exactly*, then of course LEDs can be more efficient than the regular sh*t when it comes to growth.

Getting LEDs in the blue/violet spectrum is not the issue. They can be found anywhere (violet, can sometimes be called UV, just look at the wavelength in NM). It's been a couple of months since I researched this crap real hard, but I'mpretty sure they need 405nm and 420nm bad for photosynthesis. The other important wavelength is 660nm (good luck finding them). That is getting towards the ends of the visual spectrum. The beauty of this is plants don't need this to grow, but this spectrum will really speed up the growth of plants. Blues are kind of like having an engine, reds are like having a turbo on it. Or, since you are an engineer, blues will allow it happen, but reds will act as a catalyst. Google NASA studies on plant growth in space if you doubt me, but what I say is fairly accurate for layman's terms. Don't be afraid of tossing an extra 6500k bulb on your tank, even if your running LEDs. There is a lot that mankind doesn't understand, see, or study for. Just get a 48" tube for this.

As of right now, fluorescent still wins for freshwater, even spending extra on plant bulbs.

The other bitch is making the light. There are a sh*t ton of solder joints to make.

Give it time. A couple of yrs at least.

I wish I could find the formulas for you, but I'm not having much luck right now (I'm crocked).

If your asking about SW then you have skunk for f*ck's sake.

LI-FI is the king of efficiency right now. Just look at skunks recent posts on it. Hopefully they make a bulb that's decent for freshwater plants.


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## [email protected]° (Jun 16, 2004)

Awesome reply!!

I am a very specialized and endangered species of engineer, so I am not fully familiar with the science, but I would like to be!!

If you can dig up any kind of specs I'd love to mull them over!!

Maybe we should work on cracking the code, then go into business!!

The market WILL GROW!!!

Hopefully there are ways to keep the cost down.


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## maknwar (Jul 16, 2007)

too much $$$ right now, other than that, ?.


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## CuzIsaidSo (Oct 13, 2009)

Great info Plowboy


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## Ægir (Jan 21, 2006)

Bake, the problem with LEDs is people are getting to greedy with the technology... Solaris made LED fixtures years ago (yeah, they werent cheap) but ended up having to STOP production because of patent problems, and because somebody jerked it out from under them.

If you search "lighting by Evil" you can find some pretty cool PAR38 spotlights, that screw into a standard socket... Here

Which is the smart route, unless you want to buy drivers, buckpucks, starts, LEDs and optics and solder it all together... For a 6' tank (keep in mind, most of my knowledge on this subject is for reef tanks and higher lighting applications) it costs approx 1500$ in parts to build your own fixture, that could compete with a metal halide, or T5 setup. MY main thing about LEDs is few documented results, and them living up to the claims... i have seen 1 or 2 topics that show good results

Bacially, you are looking at a 2+ year return on your investment when you compare initial setup cost to power use (compared to halides) so.. if you are going to be in the hobby that long, its worth trying and would pay off.

Like Plowboy said, i feel LEDs are going to quickly bite the dust... check out the topic i made in SW discussion about Luxim's new liquid plasma technology...


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## [email protected]° (Jun 16, 2004)

Ægir said:


> Bake, the problem with LEDs is people are getting to greedy with the technology... Solaris made LED fixtures years ago (yeah, they werent cheap) but ended up having to STOP production because of patent problems, and because somebody jerked it out from under them.
> 
> If you search "lighting by Evil" you can find some pretty cool PAR38 spotlights, that screw into a standard socket... Here
> 
> ...


Very cool stuff!!

I work in a television studio and they are going to be developing products for our industry.

I hope we get them in the future. Right now we use mainly Halides, and some florescent.

Here is a PDF about the technology if anyone else wants to check it out.

http://www.luxim.com/pdfs/avmagarticle.pdf


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