So I hate to clutter the forum since there's a lot of threads about lighting options, but not so much about frag tank lighting. I see frag tank lighting as different, because IMO even distribution is more important, and depth penetration becomes less so since the frag tanks are shallow.
I'm looking for advice on lighting options for my planned frag tank setup, which will cover an area 46" x 20". There are multiple tanks so that I can customize feeding & parameters depending on the species; i.e. SPS vs LPS vs soft coral (although whether this makes any difference remains to be seen).
I don't need much depth penetration, frags will be 6 to 12" from the water surface. I also don't think I need fancy sunrise/sunset or "lightning" features. My priorities are spectrum, spread and intensity. Cost is also a major consideration, I was thinking budget-wise under $400.
I wanted to go with a 4 or 6 bulb 48" T5 setup but the fixture alone will run me about the same as a complete LED setup. Electricity consumption of the T5s would be higher and I'd have to replace bulbs every ~9 months. It seems that T5s are actually more expensive than LED now?
So I've been trying to wade through LED options. Manufacturers like EcoTech and Kessel would be best but I'm ruling them out due to cost. I looked at Reefbreeders but they still seem too expensive. So now I'm considering 2x Phlizon 165W (~$220 total), 2 x Viparspectra 165W (~$260 total) or a single MicMol Model AA-900 or AA-1200 ($200 to $250). All of these options are available on Amazon & Fleabay.
My concern is reliability, spectrum, intensity and spread. These look like chinese-made "black boxes" to me and my experience with older black boxes is they only used one type of blue led and also tended to be too low intensity with the blue channel. People would have blue turned all the way up while white was turned way down. Also they were basically a laser beam with lots of light right under the fixture but too little light at the edges. I don't know if this has been improved.
For spectrum, the newer units claim to cover spectrum pretty well using more variety of LEDs at 380nm, 420nm, 450nm, etc. just like the big boys. The MicMol units look slick and have alot of control options (that I don't really need) but uses 0.5W LEDs. I think this would be sufficient given my low depth requirements and maybe even could have a better distribution (less of the "laser-beam effect)? It's also the cheapest option if I go with the shorter of the 2, but having one unit vs 2 means less flexibility for adjusting high and low light areas.
Any input, opinions, comments appreciated. What other factors or options should I consider?
I'm looking for advice on lighting options for my planned frag tank setup, which will cover an area 46" x 20". There are multiple tanks so that I can customize feeding & parameters depending on the species; i.e. SPS vs LPS vs soft coral (although whether this makes any difference remains to be seen).
I don't need much depth penetration, frags will be 6 to 12" from the water surface. I also don't think I need fancy sunrise/sunset or "lightning" features. My priorities are spectrum, spread and intensity. Cost is also a major consideration, I was thinking budget-wise under $400.
I wanted to go with a 4 or 6 bulb 48" T5 setup but the fixture alone will run me about the same as a complete LED setup. Electricity consumption of the T5s would be higher and I'd have to replace bulbs every ~9 months. It seems that T5s are actually more expensive than LED now?
So I've been trying to wade through LED options. Manufacturers like EcoTech and Kessel would be best but I'm ruling them out due to cost. I looked at Reefbreeders but they still seem too expensive. So now I'm considering 2x Phlizon 165W (~$220 total), 2 x Viparspectra 165W (~$260 total) or a single MicMol Model AA-900 or AA-1200 ($200 to $250). All of these options are available on Amazon & Fleabay.
My concern is reliability, spectrum, intensity and spread. These look like chinese-made "black boxes" to me and my experience with older black boxes is they only used one type of blue led and also tended to be too low intensity with the blue channel. People would have blue turned all the way up while white was turned way down. Also they were basically a laser beam with lots of light right under the fixture but too little light at the edges. I don't know if this has been improved.
For spectrum, the newer units claim to cover spectrum pretty well using more variety of LEDs at 380nm, 420nm, 450nm, etc. just like the big boys. The MicMol units look slick and have alot of control options (that I don't really need) but uses 0.5W LEDs. I think this would be sufficient given my low depth requirements and maybe even could have a better distribution (less of the "laser-beam effect)? It's also the cheapest option if I go with the shorter of the 2, but having one unit vs 2 means less flexibility for adjusting high and low light areas.
Any input, opinions, comments appreciated. What other factors or options should I consider?
