LED fixture life span.

buffalo123

New member
I been hearing that an LED will have a lifespan of about 5 years, what happen after 5yrs. what parts likely to have to be replaced. Or maybe some fixture may need to be replaced altogether?
 
I would say that the just the LEDs would need to be replaced. That is a reason I went DIY and screwed them in instead of gluing them. Plus I can easily change my color configuration if I want to. Changing out the LEDs shouldn't be too difficult though. Just a soldering iron and some time.
 
More efficient that will be interesting. Wattage can be almost as high as with MH. Once you need 3 or 4 fixtures for a 48 + inches aquarium
 
LED have lifetime use of 50,000 hours. which is more close to 10~15 years.
But as mentioned, technology will be outdated before LED burns out.
 
More efficient that will be interesting. Wattage can be almost as high as with MH. Once you need 3 or 4 fixtures for a 48 + inches aquarium

Over the last couple of years the biggest obstruction for leds was the initial cost of the fixture. $500-$750 for relatively small fixtures was just asking too much from the average reefer. I had an $1100 MH over my 180g and I thought that was semi-crazy. But the same tank would need $2250-$3000 in Eco Tech Radions, so it was out of my league. However, quality leds have finally become affordable. EverGrow and Reef Breeders (made by EverGrow) are priced very competitively with MH and only slightly more than t5's.

I just put 2 EverGrow IT2080 fixtures over my 180g and the total cost was under $750. Compare that to the $1100 I paid for a MH fixture 4 years ago or the $3000 I'd pay for Eco Tech Radions today. My power consumption is down from 1260W (MH@1000W, t5@160W and leds@100W) to just 480W at 100% power, which I never use. I only run at 65% power for 5 hours a day and less than that for another 9 hours. BTW, at 65% power my PAR is as good as my 1000W of MH! So way less power consumption. And we aren't even talking about my 1HP chiller that runs matbe 5 minutes every hour now (and I'm in SW Florida). That's down from 30+ minutes every hour with the old MH lights. And over the last 3 months, while I've been acclimating my tank to the new leds, the corals have grown at least as well as before... maybe even better!

As for how long the leds will last? I was replacing 4 MH bulbs every year ($250) and 4 t5 bulbs every year ($100... and should have been twice a year). That's $350 a year in bulbs and I only paid $340 for one led fixture! So for what I was paying in bulbs and shipping, I could have 2 new led fixtures every other year. So who cares how long they last? BTW, I have a 3 year old, blue & white led only with no dimmers over a refugium/DSB and a couple of coral frags in there are doing just fine.
 
my leds lasted 8 months... that's when i dumped them and returned to mh/t5.
 
my leds lasted 8 months... that's when i dumped them and returned to mh/t5.

What brand did you have? I have two of the D120 model's from EG running over my 75 reef for about nine months now and have encountered no problems what so ever with these units. I run the blue channel at 60% and white at 30%. I hope to get 5-7 yrs life out of these fixtures.
 
What brand did you have? I have two of the D120 model's from EG running over my 75 reef for about nine months now and have encountered no problems what so ever with these units. I run the blue channel at 60% and white at 30%. I hope to get 5-7 yrs life out of these fixtures.

it didn't died(led), only the corals did! i think success or failure has a lot to do with type of corals you keep. leathers, zoos, anemones, and some lps= good...sps's= no good. ime, that is...
 
and for the record his lights didn't die, they came to my house :D

My corals are happy so far, except the ones that weren't before I made the switch, lol(these are zoas and not SPS...they have some bacterial crap nothing to do with lighting). I switched from 4 yr old DIY LEDs(old technology) that were on my tank for over 2 years.

I did test PAR on my previous LEDs when I got them and again just before changing them. The numbers were almost identical, so they do hold up over time.

I can't say I have a lot of SPS, but I haven't lost an SPS in a long time, and have seen many many tanks running LED with SPS just fine. Maybe MH/T5 will produce better results...but LEDs don't kill corals. There are plenty of people out there failing with MH/T5 as well! For me, the extra headache of the heat issue is something I don't want to deal with, I don't have full house AC and it gets damn hot in the summer.

I don't think many light fixtures get used beyond 5 years, LED, MH or otherwise. We love to upgrade and change things up too much!
 
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and for the record his lights didn't die, they came to my house :D

My corals are happy so far, except the ones that weren't before I made the switch, lol(these are zoas and not SPS...they have some bacterial crap nothing to do with lighting). I switched from 4 yr old DIY LEDs(old technology) that were on my tank for over 2 years.

I did test PAR on my previous LEDs when I got them and again just before changing them. The numbers were almost identical, so they do hold up over time.

I can't say I have a lot of SPS, but I haven't lost an SPS in a long time, and have seen many many tanks running LED with SPS just fine. Maybe MH/T5 will produce better results...but LEDs don't kill corals. There are plenty of people out there failing with MH/T5 as well! For me, the extra headache of the heat issue is something I don't want to deal with, I don't have full house AC and it gets damn hot in the summer.

I don't think many light fixtures get used beyond 5 years, LED, MH or otherwise. We love to upgrade and change things up too much!

100% true, and as far as sps's go the jury still out in my case; whether it was the led's or poor reef keeping on my part....
 
100% true, and as far as sps's go the jury still out in my case; whether it was the led's or poor reef keeping on my part....

Sorry to hear that your jury had such a bad experience because leds have become far less expensive (as long as you don't need the hot brand names) and close enough to full spectrum and with super controllable intensity that they are cheaper than new MH right out of the gate. And I know way too many guys with leds that grow sps and lps just as fast under their leds as they did with MH. Sorry to hear that your jury had a bad experience.

mess7777, you are right about leds not getting that old due to continuing improvements in the technology. But I think those days may be coming to an end. We have full spectrum, variable color at the touch of a button, better efficiency, dimmable, cool running, and finally very reasonably priced! What can possibly be improved on? :beer:
 
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