Lighting Advice and Education needed

[dave]

The lights on my current 'fish only' tank are going south and i want to replace them. The current setup is a 150 gallon 'fish only' using 2 sets of T5 doubles (one full spectrum, one full actinic bulb). Most of my fish are 3 to 6 inches in length and the tank has been stable for five years. Now I would like to step up the lighting and try to grow some basic inverts and starter corals.

I am thinking about an LED setup with 2-36 inch units or 1-72 inch unit. I need to educate myself on the options available while keeping costs in mind. Can anyone suggest websites or books that would help me understand the lighting options?

Thanks much!

[k-eel-eigh18]

I have been looking for LEDs myself, for the size you would need the price isnt cheap. I have been pricing full spectrum 48" and I am looking at about 12 to 18 hundred. The sites that I have found are acanlighting.com and ocreefled.com. If ypu have found anything cheaper let me know...

[Coach]

Dave,

Are you a DIY guy or just buy it type of guy? Depending on how you answer, depends on who we can put you in touch with. In my experience, lighting is just expensive. However, the LED prices are coming down.

[Michael]

First DIY or not you will probably spend about same amount of money for the same amount of light.

Although there are quite a few retail fixtures that are very overpriced for what they bring in terms of lightning. Some features like flexible programming modes, online access etc of course add to those prices, but really if you think about it they do not bring much value to the light itself. And with little more DIY you can have most of those features anyways.

If you want to make the light yourself visit ledgroupbuy, they have everything you need including a pretty decent controller that you can hook up to the fixtures and set up sunrise sunset effects through out the day.

For retail most economical lights would probably be from reefbreeders. If you ok with just having two channels - blue/white, that you turn on with timers, then the value fixture would be the best buy. You get all the same lights as their photon series and save over $100, by not having dusk/dawn ability, which really is mostly for us imo Finally, you can ask these guys to completely change the LED layout. So it's sort of DIY, but someone else puts it together for you in a nice package. They do use Bridgelux LEDs which are cheaper and a bit less efficient than Crees, but that's how you save so much. Their bridgelux 55 LED fixtures cost around $160-180 depending when you buy it, for me to make something similar DIY with Crees and 6 channels instead of just 2 cost around $600.

There are a number of other retail fixtures out there like AI and Vortech, although their choices of LEDs are somewhat questionable. Mainly the Cool Whites they seem to like to use. But still these lights are good and will definitely grow any coral. However since they are so tightly packed there will be hard shadows in your tank.

To counter act that you would have to mount fixtures sideways and buy quite a bit more of them.

Like this


instead of this


This comes mainly not just from how manufactures mount the leds in tight groups in the fixtures, but also from how the LED itself sends out the light. It's very directional, more so with tighter lenses. In perfect world I would like to have an LED above every inch of my tank's top

I am currently planing to do just that with 2 of my own fixtures and 4 values one from reef breeders over my new 180g tank.

Can sort of see it here. I don't have the 4 reefbreeders fixtures yet, but using two similar ones in the middle. When I will get them two will go in the middle and two on the far sides with my DIY fixtures in between. That will give a pretty good spread with even PAR numbers throughout the tank.

[dave]

David - I would consider myself a DIY guy to the point of hanging the lights or putting together strips of LEDs to create the results I am looking for.
I lack knowledge on the different measures of lighting that I need to understand when putting together a solution.
Dave

[dave]

Michael - Thank you for the excellent suggestion on the lighting suppliers! I agree on your statement about some of the lighting solutions offered these days are loaded with features the we don't necessarily need.
I am only basically familiar with PAR values, lumens etc. which is where I need to brush up on my knowledge.

Dave

[Michael]

Make sure on PAR you don't compare LEDs to T5/MH. LEDs have very tight wavelengths for the most part so if you get one to shine blue that's all you get no mix of bit green in there or something.

What that means is that with LEDs we can choose to have only wavelengths that are useful for photosynthesis without any extra ones that are just there wasting power. This is where part of power saving from LEDs come from, other than they are a bit more efficient than say MH. In efficiency MH is probably should be called a heater and then a light source

Anyways, these select wavelength do mess with PAR readings on meters as none that we have so far are built or calibrated for LEDs. As such it's a pretty safe bet to add about 10-15% to the readings you might get from a par meter.

Lumens is not very meaningful measure and there is no formula to go from it to PAR, although you could get some sort of guesstimate.


As far as actual PAR values, from what I read for SPS going over 400 in most cases is useless or even detrimental. Basically, corals can absorb only so much before they are "full". Having around 150-200 PAR on sand bed and 350-400 on top of the rocks would probably be a good point for a mixed coral tank with decent amount of acros milies etc, while having spots where LPS can live happily as well.

[Daimyo68]

Decent article from a few years ago by Sanjay: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2010/2/aafeature2

An extremely in-depth and precise article by Carl Strohmeyer (if your really looking to learn about lighting): http://www.americanaquariumproducts...._lighting.html

[Coach]

I think you have now been given plenty of information. Now you just have to decide what to do.

[dave]

Thanks all O-R-C-A members for the information! I have enough information now to not only educate myself but can take the DIY or the purchase path to step up my lighting.

Dave