Lost and confused on led lighting

[Kim14701]

So a while ago I bought 2 beamswork quad power 60 hi lumen led light bars for my tank fromebay.

It's 200 ish gallon (72l x 24 w x 30h I think) mixed reef with lots of easy to care for frags, mostly zoas, mushrooms and acans.

I'm only using one light bar right now because I miss placed the cord for the other while the tank was in storage.

I have tried VERY hard to understand how lighting works and the more I read the more confused I get.

I will attach a screen shot of the specs I found.

Can anyone tell me if these are going to limit me on any corals? The box says reef ready but we all know Chinese import companies lie....

 

[Kim14701]

Oh and the light is about 3" above the water surface.

 

[mcgyvr]

That light is really not suitable for growing corals..
Low light corals and shallow tanks ok sure..
But yes its going to limit you drastically into what you can keep.. Even more so with a 30" deep tank..

 

[sde1500]

Good quality light fixtures use 3w LED not 1w

 

[Ron Reefman]

These are very capable of being reef ready lights if your reef is 12" to 18" deep. Or a deeper tank if it's reef fish only!

With 88 one watt leds over a 30" deep tank isn't even close to enough for even easy coral. Even with 2 of these fixtures you'll be doing well to keep corals alive, let alone healthy and growing. Even easy, low light corals. Your tank is too deep for this fixture. It might work OK over an 18" deep tank, but at 30" deep you just won't have enough intensity for the corals to do photosynthesis.

The fixture data says for tanks of 60" to 65" and your tank is how long? 72" Oops!

The data sheet you posted doesn't offer any indication of how many white or blue leds there are, or even better, what spectrum they are. So I looked it up and it has 64x 10000K daylight, 24x actinic 460nm. Most aquarium led fixtures these days have equal numbers of white and blue leds, some even have more blue than white (and I think they are the better ones).

It sounds like you bought these some time in the past "... because I misplaced the cord for the other while the tank was in storage." I don't know what you paid for them back then, but today they are selling for about $75. You can't go that cheap over a 72" long, 30" deep tank if you want to keep corals.

The least expensive led you can use is a MarsAqua at about $100 each and you'll need 3 for low light corals and 4 if you do any corals that need more. Your current fixtures would work well over a refugium to grow algae.

 

[Kim14701]

Thanks everyone. Yes I bought them maybe 4 years ago, never used them until I restarted about a year ago.

I measured unbeween the overflows instead of the entire tank length (knows nothing about lighting). Also at the time most leds for aquariums from big retailers (petsmart, Walmart etc.) where 0.5 watt, so I thought I was a head of the game by getting 1 watt and buying 2 of them.

I have 2 400 watt MH I was using and at the time the new led bars where compatible in price to a new bulb for those fixtures ($100ish) each.

I considered dragging back out the MH but hated the heat they threw off, cost to run them and i ended up frying a lot of corals. (Bad placement on my part at the time).

 

[Kim14701]

My brother is very good at electrical/computer programming DIY stuff. He's more then willing build me a controllable led fixture but I'm not sure on what to tell him for specs needed? It seems everything goes on par level?

I haven't bought a par meter because truthfully it would of been an expensive waste of money for me to have a $300 tool I don't know how to use that tells me my lights where crap as I've suspected lol

Any suggestions? 3watt leds seem to be what's being used in lights now. But how many? Is it measureable in so many per square foot surface area or something that makes more sense to someone like me? Also color, there seems to be more then white and blue now to.

 

[teddyzaper]

My brother is very good at electrical/computer programming DIY stuff. He's more then willing build me a controllable led fixture but I'm not sure on what to tell him for specs needed? It seems everything goes on par level?

I haven't bought a par meter because truthfully it would of been an expensive waste of money for me to have a $300 tool I don't know how to use that tells me my lights where crap as I've suspected lol

Any suggestions? 3watt leds seem to be what's being used in lights now. But how many? Is it measureable in so many per square foot surface area or something that makes more sense to someone like me? Also color, there seems to be more then white and blue now to.

building a light costs nearly as much as buying them. Look into the Chinese LED boxes if you want to budget. They are great for the price (don't pay more than $100 for the smaller ones, or $200 for the long ones). You'll need 4-6 of them most likely.

To build an LED light for that sized tank you're looking at least $1000. Look at LEDsupply.com for some kits and some ideas on what you'd need to do.

 

[Kim14701]

Thanks! Most of the computer chips/boards etc. he would having already I'm sure. It is ridiculous with Halloween displays and makes all his lights/animated things himself. Obviously not even close to the same as an aquarium in terms of light intensity and all. I was figuring being in a large metro area (Dallas) loaded with "LED super stores" and wholesalers it might be a easier and cheaper route to end up with a better result.

Some of the newer fixtures have many options that seem like a waste of money to me. I mean does the coral really need a fake thunder storm lol is there really any benifit to red and green lights for the animals themselves? I get we should try to provide the most natural envioemt we can, but most corals are aquacultured now. Mine are anyway, their natural environment has always been a tank.

I think a lot of the new stuff was designed around the users and "interesting features and unnessacery control" to help sales.

I suppose I will dig out and dust of the MH today and order some new bulbs for now. So far everything in my tank seems happy and is growing. I can't wait to see how well it all does with proper lighting ��

 

[Kim14701]

He* not it, I don't know how to edit posts.

 

[mcgyvr]

I was figuring being in a large metro area (Dallas) loaded with "LED super stores" and wholesalers it might be a easier and cheaper route to end up with a better result.

No it really won't..

And halloween blinky lights are nothing like whats required for high power LEDs..

 

[Kim14701]

Thanks for the replies!

He's a little more advanced then blinky lights for Halloween, it's more professional props and a animated light show that draws in 1000s of guests each year and raises a few 1000 $$ for a our locally police depts Christmas drive.

He does not have a par meter but has some sort of electric meter he can order the water proff par meter probe for. He does however have a lux meter and I have a food sealer system that did water proff it lol from what he converted he said there's deffinatly not enough light at the bottom of the tank. But the topto middle of the tank seem to read in a really good range (makes sense I have a bleaching favia on the top I thought needed more light, nope).

He said not to break out the old MH fixtures and just research and save up in the next few months for some better ones.