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LED lights

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hijinks

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tosiek

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The fixture is tailored to aquariums and alot of R&D is put into the LED aquarium fixtures. Your getting HID LED's at the correct lumen/color intensity rating and the fixture is timable and programmable to color settings. Your not gonna find anything close with 24$ LED strips. They aren't bright enough and they are cheap so you will lose intensity alot quicker. Your also paying alot for a product thats fairly new in the market.

It would be very hard to match cheap LED strips to aquarium requirements as well as the toys that come with the fixture.

Yes, the LED fixtures are real expensive, moreso then they should be but its that price for a reason. Supply/demand as well as the tech that goes into them. They are one of the only fixtures that upgrade yearly to something better.

IMO, untill LED's get alot better i still prefer the color output of a good MH bulb supplimented for lighting over tanks. Stuff still looks very washed out under them compared to other lighting.
 
alfani

alfani

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they are expansive only because there is not enough demand for it, the increase price to compensate cost.

If I can sell 5 units of MH lights per month for profit of $100 each but can only sell 1 unit per month of LED I would need to sell it 5x more expansive for same amount of profit
 
Aqua Pro Builder

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Don't be fooled by the length of the strip or number of LEDs in a strip fool you. The ones in the link you listed do not mention how bright they are and what color temperature they are at. "LED is not just LED"-there are apples and oranges. The common market ones are 6,700K for warm white to 8,100K for cool white. For aquarim you need 10,000K or up.

For lower wattage LEDs, both me and some other manufacturer makes 10,000K ones. For Power LEDs, I think I am the only one who make 12,000K ones.
As for Super High Power LEDs, and offering at 10,000K 12,000Kk 14,000K and 20,000K, I am pretty sure I am the only brand making them-well, at least for now.

It's clearly a demand supply/issue if two million customers decide to order with me now, I probbably can get the price down to half as shipping, factory streamline setups, warehousing can be made to produce in mass. Think of it like buying a T5 bulb, you get $4 a pcs for home use while paying $14 for ones tuned for aquariums.
 
alfani

alfani

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duke62 said:
why are LED lights so expensive for fish tanks.i just looked at a web site and they are dirt cheap
http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/store/commerce.cgi?product=BARS
why cant you use like 4 or 5 of these strips on a setup instead of spending a near fortune on the ones made for a tank
Click to expand...

they are good enough for things such as zoa and mushrooms but does not have enough intensity for lps. i think they are 0.09 watt in each led, you just need to find something in the range of 1 watt LED.

as for color, daylight is at 6.4K-6.7K that's the brightest for you to increase to 15K just add more blue
 
Aqua Pro Builder

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duke,

I am bowing out of this thread as there are proper info and too many misinfo.

A simple search in the internet yield,
At 20ma,
a "white(expect to be ~8,100K)" 3.5 x 2.8MM surface mount LED produces 1500mcd
a "warm white(expect to be ~6,700K)" 3.5 x 2.8mm surface mount LED prodces 1200mcd

At 20ma,
a "white(expect to be ~8,100K)" 5.5 x 5.0MM surface mount LED produces 3000mcd
a "warm white(expect to be ~6,700K)" 5.5 x 5.0mm surface mount LED prodces 2500mcd


Both cases indicate with LED technology, ~8,100K is brighter than ~6,700K for the same power consumption!

NOTE: The same conclusion cannot be drawn with other lighting technologies such a fluorecent light nor MH as the way light are generated are TOTALLY DIFFERENT.

Good luck in your venture.
 
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I

ILikeFish

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Wingo,

Do you have the spectral distribution of the kind of lights you recommend so we can compare them the others we see on th net?

I have noticed a lot and back and forth on this topic. I think that kind of visual would help a lot.

Also, I am not sure if it is appropriate to talk about LEDs in terms of color temp as i think that refers more to a black body distribution.

I love your lights! Thanks for you help .
 
duke62

duke62

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what im wondering is is you make a canopy lets say your tank is 18" wide and a strip is around 1" wide say you space them out an inch so that will give you 9 srips all together you add in the canopy.3 blue and 6 white per 30 bulbs on a strip will give you 270 lights.you dont think these lights will be bright enough to house many different types of corals even at 6,700 k.thats alot of lights.enen if you were to get an even 10 strips in there and add more white.at 250 dollars it might be worth it to give it a try.
 
alfani

alfani

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duke62 said:
what im wondering is is you make a canopy lets say your tank is 18" wide and a strip is around 1" wide say you space them out an inch so that will give you 9 srips all together you add in the canopy.3 blue and 6 white per 30 bulbs on a strip will give you 270 lights.you dont think these lights will be bright enough to house many different types of corals even at 6,700 k.thats alot of lights.enen if you were to get an even 10 strips in there and add more white.at 250 dollars it might be worth it to give it a try.
Click to expand...

i do not think it would be enough. 270 led would roughly equates to 24 watt, I have 600 of these LEDs all blue running in my tank, it's roughly replaces 1.5x54w T5 bulb. you need better LEDs than these, I believe lazibonez is selling some of these LEDs. I would recommend go to ebay and look for 1 watt LEDs, the new ones are 8000mcd for cheap or if you want to go with LED
 
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Chiefmcfuz

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To be honest with you Wingo bowing out of this thread is by far the worst thing to happen to it. Of all the people here at MR Wingo has to be one of the most knowledgeable people about LED reef tank lighting. If he says something I listen to it because he has researched it and tested it and can back up all of his statements with proof not specualtion.
 
duke62

duke62

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well thats why i started it im very curious on these lights.if you where to fill the whole canopy instead of spacing them you will have 540 lights which would cost roughly 450 to 500 dollars.and i dont know if wattage is what we are looking for in the led i thought it was more or less the spectrums of light.so if what said is corals wont survive with these spectrums.and if you were to buy 540 of the 10k version of these lights the price more then triples.i understand its supply and demand but thats some mark up
 
DrCooper

DrCooper

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I am going to have to agree with the chief. I dont know much about LED at all, but I listen to Wingo. I saw his stuff at the swap and it was real nice. He sure knows his stuff as far as I can tell.
I think for moonlights, those type of LED's do great. I saw Wingo's super power (or whatever they are called, sorry) LEDs to replace MH and it was amazing. The light was unreal. Way out of my price range, but really cool stuff.

Either way, get a few of those strips and try them out! best luck
 
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