DIY refugium light or Amazon?

Joshua Kerstetter · Oct 24, 2018

After the upgrade of my sump adding a refugium was a definite goal. I looked into multiple lighting options, staying away from the high end lighting options, that's just not my style. I've seen multiple others using 5k LED bulbs easily available at Home Depot. But after scouring Amazon, and comparing what it would be to setup a single or dual bulb, do the wiring.. mount it .. etc.. I ended up just getting this.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N51OJ82/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Its been 'ok'.. chaeto hasn't died.. but hasn't really 'grown' either.. I'm wondering how does everyone gauge success.. I want it to grow and be healthy.. but don't see a need for it to be going crazy that I have to trim it all the time. Any thoughts.. or anyone out that with other lighting experience?

saltyfilmfolks · Oct 24, 2018

That’s a fine light.
Flow and nutrients are also a factor.

jjflounder1 · Oct 24, 2018

I got one of those 150w UFO lights new on eBay for about $20. It's working great ... Just can't beat the price ...

When my system was new Chato all but totally died .... At about month 10 it started growing out of nowhere ...
Has been doing great since then

Gareth elliott · Oct 24, 2018

Another cheap option is Chinese grow light bulbs. Have had a few running for about 2 years on my indoor green house. The down side is they will take forever to ship to you. Mine took 2.5 months to arrive at my door.

doubleohwhatever · Oct 24, 2018

I tried a similar led grow light from amazon for a DIY algae scrubber and it worked pretty good. This one to be exact:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01F53LP46

I'd check nutrient levels before tossing the light.

Mandelstam · Oct 25, 2018

I think it's getting more and more understood that even if red+blue is the main wavelengths used in photosynthesis the reality is that plants/algae use the whole spectrum to a higher degree than believed before. A lot of high end grow lights now incorporate some 6500K in their mix. So if I felt that I needed to boost my red/blue grow light I would do it with some daylight colored LEDs to maybe bump up some wavelengths and fill in some gaps along with the overall light intensity.