LED for planted tank

[BFG]

How to choose a led light set.

1) Wattage per led bulb.
Go for led that is 3w per led bulb. This should have enough intensity for most application ( planted and marine ) for up to 2ft tank depth. PAR penetration is better compared to T5 at lower level of the tank. Lumens is not important for led bulb but kelvin rating is important in choosing the correct led bulb for your use. Get it wrong and your plant growth might be stunted.

2) Cooling.
Check the led bulb lightset. Led bulb do produce heat, especially the 50w ones ( per led bulb ). There are 2 types of cooling method that I see that are found on led lightset, passive cooling and active cooling. Passive cooling uses heat sink to dissipate the heat away from the panel that the led bulb are mounted on. Active cooling is the addition of an on board fan built into the lightset to draw in air into the heat sink to move the heat away and cool the heat sink. Ensure that your lightset is equipped with either of these cooling method.

3) Safety devices.
Some led lightset comes with a temperature cut off device, meaning if your lightset reaches temperature that might cause harm to the lightset due to failure of the built in cooling equipment, the lightset automatically switches off. Good to have this option.

4) Replacement option.
Burn out do occur, even with led bulb. Might be due to improper led mounting technique or other reason whatsoever. Get a lightset which allow you to replace a led bulb if this happens. On some led lightset, you need to send the whole unit back just to replace a led bulb. Your livestock might not be too happy when this happen. With ease of replacing led bulb, you might want to experiment with other kelvin led bulb to get the customized color look that you want.

5) Built in timer.
There are led lightset that has these built into them. Nice feature to have.

6) Upgrade feature.
Features such as the ability to add lenses to the led bulb and the variety of lenses available. Option to have a narrower beam to focus the intensity or a more wide beam to disperse the light from the led bulb.

Hope this helps!

[cidlyana]

Does the area that a led light cover has any relation with the beam angle?

[k3nlim]

Gabes,

You manage to get any picture of your tank using the led?

[k3nlim]

The led is failing me again after exchanging for a replacement 2 months ago..its kinda of frustrating to have incident of this sort happening again!!

[benjamin216]

Heard can do customized led lights now. True?

[k3nlim]

Heard can do customized led lights now. True?

do you want to do a customized lights with unrealiable led?

[k3nlim]

the light bulb seems to be holding up...
plant growth are not that quick when compared to 2x24watts t5ho