72. 3watt LEDs enuff?
- Thread starter bigkai
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Shadrach72
Community Member
Think it all depends on what you are trying to house like fowlr or reef?
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roblox84
Active Member
I think it would be good to throw some color leds in there like you mentioned. Instead of 7 pink you could do 2 reds, 2 greens, and maybe some cool blues or something like that.
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bigkai
Well-Known Member
As far as enuff light will I still need to run my t5s? And what I'm thanking I'm going to make long light bars 48" long by 3" wide. And do two light bars i will draw something up tonight. Now I'm trying to deside if I want to do 72 LEDs and have to manually turn lights on and off and adjust brightness by hand. Or lose 16 LEDs and get 56 LEDs and use a controller to control every thing.
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roblox84
Active Member
You shouldn't need to run your t5 lights with the leds. As for manual dimming, that's what I have but I never use it. I would just buy more leds vs the controller. Once you find the color you like you will most likely never touch the dimmers.
What I do to acclimate coral is just start the leds on a very short photoperiod and increase from there. The coral I get comes from shallow frag tanks with intense leds anyway, so not much acclimation is needed.
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bigkai
Well-Known Member
Well from what I can find 24. 3 watt LEDs have the same par values as a 250w MH fixture so with 56 leds it will be about like having 2 MH fixtures and 72 LEDs would almost be 3 MH fixtures. So I'm thanking this will be more than enuff light I hope if not I can all ways run the t5s till I get more LEDs. So has any one seen a LED fixture that the LEDs are run straight in a roll or is it best to have the spread out all over the place?
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fragmatic
retired reefer
..this.... and it is not a perfect science.. I have a PAR meter.... and I have found any comparisons between PAR of MH, T5, etc.. do not really work out... LED light is different.. it is digital pulsing.. frequency exacting.. and just doesn't work out that way.
I compared PAR at three LFSs and then tried to match it on my tank.. it was too much... I don't have the answer nor pretend to but it isn't apples for apples. PAR meters do not measure all aspects of growth effects of lighting... we really do not have anything that does. PAR is the best we have at an affordable price.. shrug...
Plus.. I "Think" a PAR meter is intended to measure plant growth properties of a lighting system... it gets pretty muddy when we start trying to use it to measure values for coral growth and then toss in light waves off an LED.
But what do I know??? not much.. this is all so new and we have much to learn about it.
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fragmatic
retired reefer
I don't know if I agree or not.. we just do not know that much about the total LED picture.. We do know PAR is not the total picture which I wish it was. It is only a relative reference for comparison. All I know that is fact is that I have 54 watts of LED and my tank is fine. Even that piece of information gets gets muddy as a recommendation to the next person because LEDs put out more and more light as the technology develops per watt. Now suddenly we need to be reminded that Watt is power used and has nothing to do with light out put.. We are accustomed to using it as a relationship to light output from the past kinds of lights.. well.. that was then, this is now and we are moving into the realm of LEDs. .... Well, a Watt has something to do with light output... now it simply means a specific series of LED is putting out more light if we increase the watts (volts & current) we provide it (we call that dimming).. to a point.
For those thinking about switching to LEDs.. here is food for thought... this is a mighty fast moving technology.... You can bet there will be some amazing new LEDs on the market soon. So it is worth considering a wait and see for as long as you can stand it. Also, as new LEDs and smarter light systems come on the market, the ones that are now state of the art will be available for much less $$$.
I have LEDs on my tanks.. one reason was for energy savings and another was to avoid buying expensive bulbs twice a year or so because the LEDS should be expected to last 9 to 11 years (current technology). Well, reality is new technology is going to cause me to want to replace them with event more efficient, better growth color technology, and smarter units in a couple of years.
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