light for fuge

[killinit123]

I would honestly just go to walmart and get a plant light thats what i use in my 36 gal sump and it does just fine its a $5 bulb and i replace it every once and a while

also doesnt cheato and other macro mostly grow from nutrients not light? correct me if im wrong but it is to my knowledge that po4 is fuel for most macro to thrive

 

[slief]

For kicks and giggles, I ordered a pair of the 20w leds to compare the PAR numbers. I should have them Thursday and will report back. I just don't think there is any need for higher wattage LED's for growing chaeto let alone most macro. I also retested the 10w light with a fresh battery I had here and the numbers were the same.

 

[slief]

I would honestly just go to walmart and get a plant light thats what i use in my 36 gal sump and it does just fine its a $5 bulb and i replace it every once and a while

also doesnt cheato and other macro mostly grow from nutrients not light? correct me if im wrong but it is to my knowledge that po4 is fuel for most macro to thrive

Chaeto and other macro use light to photosynthesize just like plants. As such, they need light and the nutrients serve as food.

The cheap grow lights work "ok". I've used them myself before switching to the cfl's and ultimately the LED's and they will grow stuff but these lights work much better and don't need to be replaced. They also don't run the risks of moisture intrusion with the fixture because the lights are sealed and outdoor rated. So there is the added benefit of piece of mind knowing that the humidity isn't going to cause issues.

 

[superdragon]

slief - I see that you recommend using 6500k for cheato and macro. I have read some people use 5100k like melev'sreef. I was wondering what your experience is with the 5100k.

 

[slief]

slief - I see that you recommend using 6500k for cheato and macro. I have read some people use 5100k like melev'sreef. I was wondering what your experience is with the 5100k.

No experience with 5100k. I've used the 6500k for years now with great success but I went that route after doing some research and 6500k seems to be the general consensus. I'm sure a 5100k would work well too. In Melevs article, he was originally using a 6500k CFL and stumbled upon a different bulb that had a built in reflector. That light was much lower kelvin but it grew the chaeto better than the CFL. He then found the same version 5100k bulb which worked better yet. My guess is that the increased growth was more a result of the bulbs design and it's built in reflector. Especially because the CFL was a spiral one and the new bulb was even lower wattage but the built in reflector made it much more efficient. This leads me to wonder how his growth would have been using the same bulb in a 6500k..

The 6500k is more of a natural daylight color. As you go lower in kelvin the light becomes more yellow. Whether that is good or bad for chaeto, I don't know but 6500k is proven to grow chaeto well and I suspect that the 5100k would grow it fine too as Melev duly noted. Since i have no first hand experience with 5100k, I can only relay what I've used and had success with.

Fortunately, growing chaeto is easy provided you have a decent light source and sufficient nutrients. I don't think it's very picky about spectrum.

 

[slief]

The 20 watt LED's arrived today and I just hooked the lights up. Given my fuge layout. I can tell that the 20 watt lights spread is better suited for my refugium as mine has a really large footprint with lights very close to the water. I think I mentioned that mine were 8" off the water.. It's actually6" off the water so spread is really important to me.. I decided to put the two 20 watt lights on in place of two of my four 10 watt lights. The 20 watt lights are on either end and I left the two 10 watt lights in the center where they are slightly higher due to a cover I have over an opening.

The Par however doesn't reflect the wattage increase watt for watt. I got 158-160 PAR using my Apogee MQ-200 on the 20 watt fixture vs 130-135 on the 10 watt fixture from the same 8" or so distance. The big difference however is in the spread which as mentioned is substantial. The 20 watt obviously has better spread given the fact that it's a much broader light fixture. At 12" distance, the 20 watt fixture will light up a 24x24 space.

That said, unless the light was 6" from the waters surface, this 20 watt light would have wasted too much energy with it's spread to be practical for the smaller 12"x 18"refugium and the excess light on the glass would have resulted in hair algae and probably cotton candy algae growth all over the glass. I think the 10 watt will be better suited given what I know now about the 20 watt, it's PAR and spread.

I need to take the two 10 watt lights I removed and run a par test on those with them both on. Stay tuned on that.

 

[slief]

OK... Just tested two 10 watt lights together. With the lights parallel, the par was about the same as 1 10 watt light when tested in the center of the two lights. Essentially I was testing where the light spread overlapped as it was the same as before directly under the center of the light. When I pointed the lights slightly towards each other as shown in the photo below, the Par increased slightly and was a near match for the 20 watt at about 156 PAR.

 

[slief]

Long story short. Cody, I think you made the right choice with the 10 watt lights given the size of your tank. I would suggest you get them as close to the water as possible though to maximize their intensity and reduce their spread by doing so. If you could hang them 6" off the water, that would be ideal.

 

[codydemmel4]

I greatly appreciate all the experimenting you did and all the help. I actually just PM'ed you on helping with the lights and wiring them, I have never done this before.

You have been a ton of help, I know the 2 10 watt lights will work great on my fuge as it is small footprint. Thanks again for all your help, I know this helped me a ton and I am sure it will help a ton of other fellow reefers that are looking for inexpensive but great lights for a fuge.

 

[slief]

Glad to help. It was good to put the PAR meter to use and also somewhat educational for me as I had not tested these lights for PAR.

I replied to your PM with wiring instructions but incase anybody here is interested, just get a 2 prong extension cord and cut the female end off. The yellow is not used unless you use a 3 prong cord in which case, it would go to the ground wire which is typically green. I use a 2 prong cord myself.

Connect the two brown wires to one wire on the extenion cord and then connect the two blue wires to the other. Since it's AC current, it doesn't really matter what wire you connect them to on the extension cord as long as you pair the colors up on the lights. Some extension cords will have colored wires in which case the brown will go to block or brown on the cord depending on the wire coloring.

I just took a picture of mine. You can see the wiring in the picture below. I used splice caps. Not ideal if you are going to be moving the lights a bunch unless you wrap them with electrical tape afterwards. You could solder and shrink tube the wires which would be best or use crimp connectors with electrical tape over them. For me, I don't move my lights far. I just slide them over to the other lid when I monkey around in my fuge.

 

[codydemmel4]

So thanks to all the help from slief I have my lights hooked up on my sump. I was nervous to wire them together but I have all that done and a lot of electrically tape on them.

I am just wondering if it is better to have these lights on 24/7 or just the opposite of the DT.

 

[slief]

So thanks to all the help from slief I have my lights hooked up on my sump. I was nervous to wire them together but I have all that done and a lot of electrically tape on them.

I am just wondering if it is better to have these lights on 24/7 or just the opposite of the DT.

Glad you got it setup. I run 12 hours ON 12 OFF. Opposite of the display photo period. Running 24/7 is typical for a scrubber but not for chaeto. Plus running 24/7 isn't good for the reproduction cycle of copepods and the upside to growing cheato is the home it makes for pod populations.

 

[jayball]

light for fuge

Curious, why did you decide not to ground it.
Also, you may want to seal those butt connectors. They should really be in a j-box.

 

[slief]

Curious, why did you decide not to ground it.
Also, you may want to seal those butt connectors. They should really be in a j-box.

Yea, normally they are soldered shrink tube but I have been doing some testing with my lights so they are just held in place with the butt caps. As for the ground. When I first switched to these lights 4 years ago, I grabbed the cords I had which were ungrounded. Also didn't feel that I needed them grounded.

 

[toothybugs]

Scott, I gotta thank you - I grabbed 4 of the 10W lights for my current sump and future refugium, and after wiring one of them up, I am very impressed. I'm looking forward to putting some chaeto under it and seeing how it goes.

 

[slief]

Scott, I gotta thank you - I grabbed 4 of the 10W lights for my current sump and future refugium, and after wiring one of them up, I am very impressed. I'm looking forward to putting some chaeto under it and seeing how it goes.

Glad to hear it! May they grow lots of chaeto for you! :beer:

 

[Jlentz]

Thanks for the info slief! I'm getting one of the 10W to setup my refugium this week.


Now I gotta put on my safety hat...
As far as the wiring goes, you really should have it grounded. Especially since its hanging over saltwater.

FWIW, on stuff like this I usually go to Home Depot and buy the cheapest round cable powerstrip I can find (usually ~$5) and cut the outlets end of it off. I just wire that into the fixture, most of the stuff like this is sealed to IP68 standards so you don't have to worry too much about the connection waterproofing that way. Usually most of those cords are colored the same way as the rest as well so its not a lot of thinking to make sure they are wired up right, just match the colors.

Electricity is REALLY easy if you know what you're doing, its also really easy to kill yourself if you don't know. I'll bet you can find some youtubes on this exact thing though to help learn.

 

[TravelinLight]

These LED flood lights will be much better than those CFL's. They will provide much better spread and much more intensity with less power consumption. These are the best lights I've used to date for my chaeto. I used similar but higher wattage CFL's originally and these LED floods are MUCH better for growth and light output. No comparison between these and a CFL.
http://www.amazon.com/Generic-Water...1&sr=8-18&keywords=10w+6500K++LED+flood+light

Like I told you in the PM, you may be able to get away with 1 for your fuge size but having the second one may not be a bad thing depending on how much the chaeto is spread across the length of your fuge and depending on how close the light is to the waters surface. My fuge has acrylic covers and my lights sit directly on the cover about 6" from the waters surface.

I will second this. I bought two for my fuge and my Cheato has taken off!

 

[DamonG]

Like mentioned early in this thread, it depends really on what your goal is. Add to that, you really can't say whether something honestly works "well", compared to another approach if you haven't tried it.

Me, i have done halides, led small lights(the Home Depot/Lowes version) , full spectrum fixtures, plant cfl(the real plant self ballast bulbs), and sodiums. All of which, if compared, lower kelvin and higher wattage "do" indeed grow faster and more dense. Lol, honestly, i will challenge almost anyone on that!

There isn't a ton known yet as far as aquatics and plants, along with the effects, from what i have observed. I really love plants and i was an avid hydroponic grower (legit) for over 15 years. You learn a ton in that time and it translates well to aquariums. Your not gonna cook your cheato or tank unless your using an inefficient means of lighting. In other words, you don't want to beam a flood lamp on your tank. But you do want something both powerful enough to stimulate "effective" growth and at the same time, powerful enough to penetrate the canopy of the cheato. By that i mean, you want to be able to effectively keep even the bottom well, alive and growing.

That is why most people think you have to tumble your cheato, when in actuality, the weak light is what makes you need to. For example, the sodium I'm running, I don't tumble a thing. I never have. But my light is strong enough that i grow a thick matt that I trim back every 10 days and take to my lfs. I take them a large zip lock stuffed full of pod infested cheato.

And heat is only an issue when you use the cheap lamps and reflectors. My light is a compact 150 unit. No heat given off at all, and burns very little power. But it's the "type and spectrum" that it's optimized for. And these are designed for growing plants at accelerated rates, maximizing light, while dissipating the little heat that possibly "could" be generated.

The thing about light and plants, is that, burns, except for very low light plants, comes from heat and night from light intensity. Usually, it's the light source, giving off heat in its operation that burns or creates a "hot spot".

What would be cool, and I have yet to see it in aquaria, are light movers. Either for fuge or, for displays. They have been using them for decades with indoor growing, but it hasn't caught on at all on this side.. But if i had the space, i would still do a hid light(or two) , but would simply put it on a light mover and let it do it's thing..

 

[Maxxingout]

I just got this led and really looking forward to trying it out! Also just got my 1st chaeto and just have a reg clamp light on it now.

The method for cord I've decided to go with is your basic computer plug. They're everywhere and come nicely seal, plus they come with a ground. Gonna be soldering and shrink wrapping it up here shortly so I can mount it up tonight. Also will be wiring the Rancho that came in also. Gonin to be a soldering morning, lol.