Poll on Preferred Lighting. PL vs T8 vs T5 vs MH vs LED

[jjchew]

Prefer LED .
bougth the Beanwork LED at $55 ..

[Andy Woo]

Prefer LED .
bougth the Beanwork LED at $55 ..

Bro , how big is your tank ?

[pinkish1c3]

Does LEDs work on planted tanks or just reef tanks alone?

[Marlinsons]

I am using led light for my 4 ft planted tank. Plants are pearling and even red lotus are very red. Things are looking fine.

Check out the forum below.
http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum...a-planted-tank

[Jalal]

I voted for T5, LED has a long way to go before it can compete with T5.

[Marlinsons]

I voted for T5, LED has a long way to go before it can compete with T5.

Jalal, you will be surprised with how far the LED technology has come to now. The best in the market now can cover up to 150lumens/W. But still at a very high price. Mine is already achieving at 117Lumens/W. Very strong lights with very good performance now.... You need to find the correct solution out there. Cheers.

[Jalal]

Jalal, you will be surprised with how far the LED technology has come to now. The best in the market now can cover up to 150lumens/W. But still at a very high price. Mine is already achieving at 117Lumens/W. Very strong lights with very good performance now.... You need to find the correct solution out there. Cheers.

Thanks for the info Marlinsons, I'm aware that LED is able to achieve the equal or better performance than T5, but the price is really expensive for these kits like you mentioned. I know a few local reef shops that use LED fixtures now instead of MH or T5 because of the reduced heat and extra options you can get, but these fixtures are still out of budget for a lot of hobbyists. When LED is cheaper, I will definitely be switching all my tanks over to it, I like the shimmer effect and slimmer look, but right now the price is just to much for me and I'm sure a lot of hobbyists too.

[dc88]

There are already LED light tube available with integrated driver in standard T5 or PL configuration that allow direct plug in
to your current T5 or PL fixture.
Just google T5 LED or 2G11 LED.

[dc88]

Direct PLL replacement :
http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/led-2g11-tube.html

Also have T5 version:
http://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?...oduct_en&fsb=y

Looks liked reasonable priced : ranging from US$18~$35 per piece, and no need to change your existing light fixture or ballast, direct replace the fluorescent tubes.

btw I wonder if this still save electricity if using LED on the fluorescent ballast ? May be not the full amount as compare to using LED transformer ? But it does save the setup cost if you already have existing fluorescent lighting fixture setup.

Any interest to start a MO on this ?

[sammajor]

I would prefer T5 over PL and LED. So far no problem with my plants using T5.

[astro]

I prefer T5 for the brightness & it's cheap to replace

[AQMS]

When i first started, i use PL then i switch to T5 now i am using LED.
I like the LED the most because of low wattage, less heat and long lasting.

[Regis]

Vote for LED. Using them for months and plants growing like crazy...

[kohanson]

Vote for LED. Using them for months and plants growing like crazy...

Sorry to bring up an old post. Can you share which brand and model of LED you are using and your tank height? I was previously using Beamswork 600 LED but the light was not very bright and the tank look dull until I switch to Aquazonic T5 2x39w. Both were able to grow my java ferns, anubias, java moss.

[Atham]

I recently also replaced my Green Element 3w 24 (10k and 6.5K) LED (2 strips of 72w) to a 4 x 39w T5 Plant Pro and Typical Pro. Both LED and T5 grows plant well. The LED was very bright, but I prefer T5 Pro colour spectrum on personal preference. Tank is 50cm height.

[milk_vanilla]

T5, 13 inches from surface, happy pearling

[Shadow]

I did some google on the lumen maintenance and found something disturbing, see picture below. Although LED last longer but the lumen drop much faster after 15,000 hrs used all the way to 70% at the end of its life. Fluorescent on the other hand, drop to 85% before it start drop drastically or burn out.

So if we set 85% as the cut off point where we need to change tube, then LED life isn't much better than fluorescent light. LED lumen drop to 85% at 30,000hrs. Much shorter life than my initial understanding 50,000hrs

[Urban Aquaria]

Good points.... though just referencing from the other thread, its worth noting based on 8 hours of photoperiod a day for 365 days (2,920 hours), i suppose the selling point of LED lights is that they can still get 98-99% output in the first year, and their LEDs will still maintain around 95% output for the first 5 years (ie 15,000 hours), whereas fluorescent lights would already have dropped to 90% within the first year so i guess the difference in intensity is more apparent (which explains the noticeable difference in brightness whenever someone changes a T5 light tube after just a year of usage).

[Shadow]

I approach it from the other angle.

Let say I take the worst number which is fluorescent able to maintain 85% for 20,000hrs. Let say 4x39W T5 set, each tube generate 2000 lumen, 85% of it would be 1700 lumen. That mean each tube lose 300 lumen total from 4 tubes is 1200 lumen lost. So instead of replacing all 4 tubes, I add one additional tube which is 1700-2000 lumen, that would cover the 1200 total lumen lost and I can maximize the fluorescent usage.

The sad thing is I just replace my 3ft with floodlight LED luckily flood light is not as expensive as designer LED light

[milk_vanilla]

When you added new bulb to resurrect the lost lumen from existing bulbs, meaning you add new fixture? And must have thought for additional electricity / energy cost that you might end up with. It might equivalent with buying new bulb , i would imagine.


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