• Looking to buy a cephalopod? Check out Tomh's Cephs Forum, and this post in particular shares important info about our policies as it relates to responsible ceph-keeping.

New LED Aquarium Lighting

Light does not create algae, it just feeds it :hmm: . The difference is somewhat unimportant as you can definitely use lighting period and intensity to control (at least in part) green algae. Interestingly enough, the purple coraline in my rocks seems to be growing (or at least not diminishing) but I don't get much (if any) on my walls (unlike one of my other tanks (lighted with compacts) where I have to scrape the acrylic daily to remove the purple (looks great on the snails but doesn't seem to grow much on the rocks - go figure).

I can't give a good color determination really. The setup we decided on uses 3 sets of white and 2 sets of blue (24 lights each) and we haven't tried just the white. The combination shows off the coraline purples nicely but the effect is diminished drastically by adding just one red dome (24 lights) which is why I usually move the red to the back of the tank during the day. The added blue is not quite as effective as an actinic visually (actual wave length will be different but plants are not a factor here). I also have one of the whites inside the sump cabinet and there is definitely a color difference.

The intensitiy of the lighting I am using is far less than the lights in all my other aquariums (compacts in most with one MH for the 4' skinny tank) with about the same photo period. I cannot have critters that host algae nor any long term plants. I do put in helemedia to feed my pencil urchins and it does last for over a month but nothing green will survive long term. I have found that adding the live plants is important or my urchins start eating other things (like my feather dusters and gorgonian) and they won't eat the dried seaweeds commercially available. I have kept the small, orange, deep water sponges for over 6 month and they seem to tollerate the lighting very well. I recently put in the mushrooms and they are surviving but reach out for the light during the day and don't really add a lot to the esthetics of the tank.

The article my husband recently read (I can get the link from him if you are interested but he found it way to technical to be useful for our level of undstanding) did some comparisons between using the newest LED lighting vs Halides. The basic understanding that he came away with was that using enough LED's can produce the intensity of MH but there is a wave length difference. The article did not take a stand that one was better than the other but confirmed that the intensity could be equivalent.

Lastly, you can forget about heat, from your lights or from your equipment, being part of algae control. My pot bellies live at 66 degrees and algae loves the tank :sad:
 
Check this light out

http://www.homegrownlights.com/100W.html

It's 100watts (56lamps) of the new CREE XLamp LEDs. This is all blue/red (40blue/16red), first off how important is the green light for fish.. and is there enough interest (or it is needed) to have HGL put together a light with some white LEDs.

It basically outputs the equivalent of a 400W metal halide with minimal heat and only 125watts total usage (built in fan, no ballast needed either).

I think the only place you can get it online right now is IndoorAgriculture.com is available at DomainMarket.com (it's a grow light). 10,000+ lumens for $600 isn't bad at all.

Ben
 
eternaleds;91078 said:
Aquarium lights are typically on 24 hours/day right?
QUOTE]

No, generally we have aquariums light on a 12 hr cycle to mimic natural conditions. There may be some regional/seasonal variation but 12 hrs is about right.

The only instances where lights might be on 24 hrs are in refugiums with macroalgae such as caulerpa or swapping bright day time lights for 'darker', mostly red night lights...

Most light used in marine aquaria are designed for coral and are high in the blue spectrum and about 10000 - 20000k. The wattage is not as important as the colour spectrum the bulb produces.

Bright lights are mostly redundant in a cephalopod tank unless it is a reef come cephalopod tank

cheers
Colin
 
led lighting

doing some research on this myself, and yes you can duplicate pretty much the same lighting as halide, actually if you get the right leds they produce much higher percentages of the usable blue spectrums than mh's do. around 85 percent of the light produced is at 450nm wavelength as apposed to only 52% with mh. with about 50 % savings on electric power consumption.you need to use 3-5 watt l.e.d.'s and many of them, they can also be dimmed with a simple switch you can buy at your local electronics supply store such as radio shack. I have found a good sight to purchase them from that i have bought from before in hong kong that has great prices , after all that is where most are made regaurdless of what brand name is put on them. if anyone is interested feel free to contact me or add it on here and i will see if i can get a link posted.i am almost ready to start building mine which should cost around $200 for a 48" 90 gallon tank
 
:welcome: to TONMO, let us know how your lighting works out... are you a ceph keeper, or did you just find us looking for lighting discussions? If you're keeping a ceph, it's worth noting that it's often good to have deep red LEDs as well, since those allow humans to watch nocturnal cephs while the cephs think they're sneaking under cover of darkness...
 
One thing to note is how the different lighting effects pH. I haven't done a lot of reading on the comparisons between LED, PC, and MH, but I DO know that my tank (shark/reef) pH IS affected by the lighting. I notice it's noticeably different between the morning and evening.
 
koaea;108957 said:
One thing to note is how the different lighting effects pH. I haven't done a lot of reading on the comparisons between LED, PC, and MH, but I DO know that my tank (shark/reef) pH IS affected by the lighting. I notice it's noticeably different between the morning and evening.

Any lighting will have the effect of driving up pH during the 'day'. At night there is more generally more CO2 in the water so you have a lower pH, in the day there is less CO2 due to photosynthesis and resp so you get a lower pH. Almost all tanks have a daily pH swing, and some reefers does Kalk at night to try to keep the level more stable over time, but IMO this is usually unnecessary.

FWIW, now that some LED lights have been used for a while no in reef tanks, people are reporting unhappiness with LED and stony corals as compared to other lighting.
 
I have been using the LED for my tank almost 9 months

pilotinho;52225 said:
I am doing research with LED lighting for Aquarium use. I am new to aquariums and cephalopods but am loving it. I am also an electrical engineer and it occured to me to try to build an LED lighting arrangement for my Bimac tank. As I understand it Octos have no light requirement so I figured that I had room to play. I am posting a picture of my aquarium lighted with White LED's that consume less than 10 watts. I wanted to reduce electric use and reduce heat introduced into the system and to increase the useful lifetime of aquarium lighting. Would anyone be interested in having an LED lighting system?

I have been using the LED light for my tank for almost 9 months, very nice. :lol:
 

Attachments

  • conv_293794.jpg
    conv_293794.jpg
    188.4 KB · Views: 106
  • conv_293795.jpg
    conv_293795.jpg
    134.5 KB · Views: 81
  • conv_293796.jpg
    conv_293796.jpg
    162.3 KB · Views: 110
  • conv_293797.jpg
    conv_293797.jpg
    25.4 KB · Views: 93

Shop Amazon

Shop Amazon
Shop Amazon; support TONMO!
Shop Amazon
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Back
Top