I am trying to figure out if I have too much or too little lighting for my 20-gallon long, and I'd like to hear if anyone else uses these. Right now I have a Coralife Dual T5 NO and one 24" 5630 Blue LED strip (30 LEDs @ .4W each). The 5630s have the highest intensity of any LED strip, which is why I'm using it, but it's really hard to compare to LED lighting specifically for aquariums (this is actually made for accent on cars). I look at other LED fixtures, and they are like 32W total. I figure I probably have the equivalent of ~30W LED now, but I know there are differences in LED quality, etc....
Anyone Use 5630 LED Strips?
- Thread starter Nathanael
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mcarroll
10K Club member
Get a light meter. Free lux meter apps exist, like "galactica luxmeter" for IOS. Or you can get a $15 handheld meter from most online resellers. Search for the "LX-1010B"...that's what I use.
The biggest knocks against using those strips are that they have to be mounted close to the water and will rot over a tank.
For a 20-long, consider the Tunze 8850 for a future upgrade. It's designed to be mounted underwater.
https://www.tunze.com/US/en/products/details.html?type=&user_tunzeprod_pi1[prodid]=8850.000
$180 would get you a small CurrentUSA Orbit Marine Pro. Not submersible, but nice!
The biggest knocks against using those strips are that they have to be mounted close to the water and will rot over a tank.
For a 20-long, consider the Tunze 8850 for a future upgrade. It's designed to be mounted underwater.
https://www.tunze.com/US/en/products/details.html?type=&user_tunzeprod_pi1[prodid]=8850.000
$180 would get you a small CurrentUSA Orbit Marine Pro. Not submersible, but nice!
mcarroll
10K Club member
Don't get too caught up in the theory at this point.
If you run those strips in an alternating blue and white pattern either 1:1 or 2:1 blue:white, your spectrum will be fine.
Use the lux meter I mentioned – either the free app or the $15 handheld – to set the height of your lights off the tank.
Make the meter hit 20,000+ lux and corals should be good to go. 30,000+ lux if you want clams.
If you can't hit those numbers, add another 2:1 set of strips.
If you run those strips in an alternating blue and white pattern either 1:1 or 2:1 blue:white, your spectrum will be fine.
Use the lux meter I mentioned – either the free app or the $15 handheld – to set the height of your lights off the tank.
Make the meter hit 20,000+ lux and corals should be good to go. 30,000+ lux if you want clams.
If you can't hit those numbers, add another 2:1 set of strips.
mcarroll
10K Club member
And if you shell out $200 for anything, it better be one of those lights I suggested (or something like them)! 
A lux meter works fine....a PAR meter is nice. It's right and correct to spend $ on your lights before you spend on a PAR meter though.
A lux meter works fine....a PAR meter is nice. It's right and correct to spend $ on your lights before you spend on a PAR meter though.
Exactly, I'd rather just use the money for a really high end system if I were going to do that...
Alright, thanks. Yeah it's just been really hard trying to find a good guideline to go by with lighting intensity...
Alright, thanks. Yeah it's just been really hard trying to find a good guideline to go by with lighting intensity...
mcarroll
10K Club member
I would equally recommend not getting caught up in "needing" a high end system. They are nice for what they are, but the corals are happy with most any commercial reef light. Even DIY lights.
Some more reference data:
Some more reference data:
- 2000 PAR = 100,000 lux
- Compensation point for corals seems to be around 10,000 lux.
- At least some corals begin more intense feeding on dissolved nutrients at around 15,000-20,000 lux.
Ok, mcarroll, after testing my lighting compared to others and doing more research, I can tell you that this guideline is highly flawed.
I tested my 5630 blue led strip, and it came out to 4,000 LUX. I then tested a 3528 10,000K strip (which is more than 6x less intense than a 5620), and it came out to 4,000 as well. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how this could happen, and then I found out that blue light is much less intense to the human eye than light more on the green spectrum. All LUX is is a measure of how bright it looks to us. You are not actually measuring how strong the light is. So if someone was trying to get to 20,000 LUX using mostly lower-spectrum lighting, they would be way overdoing it. So it completely depends on what spectrum you are talking about. You CAN use LUX, you just need to make sure you do the right conversions. Light in the ocean is probably ~10,000K, so you could go from there. Here is a chart that came with the meter that depicts it, and a link to some info:
http://www.digikey.com/en/articles/techzone/2013/apr/royal-blue-leds-decoding-the-datasheet
I tested my 5630 blue led strip, and it came out to 4,000 LUX. I then tested a 3528 10,000K strip (which is more than 6x less intense than a 5620), and it came out to 4,000 as well. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how this could happen, and then I found out that blue light is much less intense to the human eye than light more on the green spectrum. All LUX is is a measure of how bright it looks to us. You are not actually measuring how strong the light is. So if someone was trying to get to 20,000 LUX using mostly lower-spectrum lighting, they would be way overdoing it. So it completely depends on what spectrum you are talking about. You CAN use LUX, you just need to make sure you do the right conversions. Light in the ocean is probably ~10,000K, so you could go from there. Here is a chart that came with the meter that depicts it, and a link to some info:
http://www.digikey.com/en/articles/techzone/2013/apr/royal-blue-leds-decoding-the-datasheet
