LED Lighting System for Reef or Saltwater Aquarium

I have been seen some LED Lighting System advertise for saltwater and reef aquariums. I was wondering if anybody had any experience with them or what were your thoughts about them. I have read and seen advertisements on them. They say they are as good as halide with little or no heat given off plus a lot less electricity used also gives off the shame shimmering effect. So does anybody here have any thought or knowledge or even built their own LED lighting system?

CDT wrote:

I have been seen some LED Lighting System advertise for saltwater and reef aquariums. I was wondering if anybody had any experience with them or what were your thoughts about them. I have read and seen advertisements on them. They say they are as good as halide with little or no heat given off plus a lot less electricity used also gives off the shame shimmering effect. So does anybody here have any thought or knowledge or even built their own LED lighting system?

i have seen them but withthe high cost i cannot really recommend them. they are a mix or white and blue led's white for daylight blue for actinic (to bring out colors in fish and corals) the solaris fixture are the best but at 2,500.00 it is not IMHO a bargain. you could DIY a fixture yourself you would just need to do a bit of research and get bulk led's and somethingto make a reflector out of and a power supply unit and you may need to make some kind of circuit board or something. like i said i have not used one and to me shimmer is not important although i can get it by making a strip out of flashlight bulbs and a power supply ( i can shine my 9.6 volt makita flashlight into the top of the tank with my T5 HO fixture with brand new bulbs and viola shimmer)

I have also seen the prices on these system they are very high. That is why I was hoping somebody had built their own. That away I may get some ideal of what it may take to build one plus the possible cost of it.

I also found a site that sells the led tubes that fit in place of a regular florescent light fixture. What I seen on youtube is that you have to remove the ballast from the light fixture.

CDT wrote:

I also found a site that sells the led tubes that fit in place of a regular florescent light fixture. What I seen on youtube is that you have to remove the ballast from the light fixture.

never dont it that way but i have seen someone making led fixtures ALA DIY but he wants a premium for his also

the problem I ran into with LED's was the lumens...very bright light but I need a lot of lumens i have a very deep tank and that is the part i could not find out much info on. i saw the So called reed LED light systems cheap for 1200 plus.. and it wasnt made linear it was made square so on a 4ft tank, it would have to use 2 led systems...i think ill just stick with my t5's for now lol

juice28 wrote:

the problem I ran into with LED's was the lumens...very bright light but I need a lot of lumens i have a very deep tank and that is the part i could not find out much info on. i saw the So called reed LED light systems cheap for 1200 plus.. and it wasnt made linear it was made square so on a 4ft tank, it would have to use 2 led systems...i think ill just stick with my t5's for now lol

if you do some online searching there is a site that sells led's in bulk. htey have pictures of the light output of each led, in the pics on that site it shows like 5 different white leds lit up and if you look close you will se the pattern of light output is ifferent on each one (same with all of the other led's the have) looking like the way it is made determines the focus of light output.

Hey Raptor, do remember the site you was on with the led showing the different outputs of lighting? I would like to see that site.

CDT wrote:

Hey Raptor, do remember the site you was on with the led showing the different outputs of lighting? I would like to see that site.

i will try and find it an post it here, it wasnt the lumens per say or the output. it was the way in which the led's focused the light. i will look tonight for the link and post it here for you

ok i found A link to some led's that show what i mean by way they emit light, also notice the first led at the top of the list shows they have it in a 10,000k (same as the stock daylight current T5 HO light fixture ), these are 3 mm leds but they do have larger and smaller:

http://www.hebeiltd.com.cn/?p=leds.3mm (this one also shows lumens)

here is another color selection on left also notice they do give the krating

i also found this which looks like a good deal for a retrofit panel and i am considering some of these for my next build although when you add up the panesl it isnt cheap but compared to a ready made panel these are very nicely priced when you can order them over a period of time while using your current light and install after you have all of your light panels ( i saved this one to my favorites BTW), if you scroll to the bottom and click on the pics next to 1 2 3 4 it will pop up the panel price #4 is 85.00 per panel.

http://www.clearlyleds.com/ProductDescription.htm

here is the link for above panel s with links to show how to install switches to wire blue and white led's independant of each other.

http://www.clearlyleds.com/WhiteVsBlue.htm

the above 2 links are the best i have found and i would recommend the clearly led panels becasue you can get a panel at a time and once you have them all you can assemble them while using your current lighting until then. these retrofit led panels did have one drawback as far as i could see, i saw NO mention of moon lights anywhere on the website but i may have overlooked it seeing as how it is 4:55 in the morning LMAO. So instead of shelling out say 2500.00 at once you can spread the cost out. for an example i looked to see a setup for a 75 to 90 and the next up which is 180 gallon tank, teh 75 to 90 has to recommended ooptions 10 panels and 14 panels where the 180 gallon tanks they recommend 12 to 21 panels so if you have say a 100 gallon tank i am thinking you would use somewhare between 10 and 21 panels total. i also figured it up as if you bought 12 of these panels all at the same time the cost would be 1040.00 before shipping making these alot cheaper than say a solaris (not sure of exact name but i think this is it) fixture.

like i said i hope these links help you.

Thanks Raptor for all of you help, research, and the links. I am so glad I saw the add for this website on Craigs List. I would have been lost without all of y'alls help I have been receiving here. I hope you and the others don't get tired of all of my beginner's questions. I will problably have a whole lot more to come.

We love questions!!

nice work raptor! im thinking about the LED switch just for the cheaper electric bill lol but i gott get a little more stable first... oh i stopped by crystal clear and i saw that pipe organ.. it is nice! i think im going to trade him my long tent nem for his medium carpet...think thats a good switch?

juice28 wrote:

nice work raptor! im thinking about the LED switch just for the cheaper electric bill lol but i gott get a little more stable first... oh i stopped by crystal clear and i saw that pipe organ.. it is nice! i think im going to trade him my long tent nem for his medium carpet...think thats a good switch?

if you want a carpet i would think so but i must tell you that carpet nems get very large, also when you touch their tentacles it is like touching dried soda (sticky) it almos seems like the nem is trying to grap you LOL. i want that blue pipe organ and if you happen to want something in trade and you have that pipe organ let m eknow LOL. by the way what was the name of that place you said you found that had the good prices on the RBTA's

juice28 wrote:

nice work raptor! im thinking about the LED switch

what i like about the led lighting on that site is you can buy it by the panel, each panel is small at 8" x 6" but you dont have to get them all at once. if you figure it up it is also cheaper, for example if you bought 21 panels all at once it woudl cost 1740.00 before shipping and it woudl completely cover a 180 gallon tank which is much cheaper and provides more coverage than buying a led light fixture from solaris.

tru tru...i see where you are going

i actually found teh page i was looking for on teh website that sold the led bulbs with the pictures of how the leds are directing the light out of them withough a reflector and here it is:

http://www.hebeiltd.com.cn/?p=z.pricelist.led.diode

nice link raptor.. very interesting indeed, im curious, im not familiar with led terms in reference to regular t5's or pwc's how can you tell if the lights are sufficient to grow corals?

juice28 wrote:

nice link raptor.. very interesting indeed, im curious, im not familiar with led terms in reference to regular t5's or pwc's how can you tell if the lights are sufficient to grow corals?

if you look at the led links you will see that they have a 10,000k led bulb adn their blue led's are 470nm where a normal actinic bulb is 420nm or 460 nm. just go the the website and compare them to t5 lighting, i am looking for someone that actually is using led lighting but mosta are saying it is to expensive and the one person i found that had even had an led fixture was sellign it)