Par38 led's on a nano

[mwood]

Been out of the hobby for a few years. Thinking of getting back into a 20-30 gallon. Please tell me about the par38 36-54 watt LEDs.

 

[Crusinjimbo]

Not sure on the questions but LED lighting is the way to go with less heat and broad range of features available. I run an old AI Sol (90+/- watts) at 60% on a 13G with great success. I filter via ATS. Welcome back

 

[schudini]

I have an ABI 12W (Royal Blue 450-470nm + Cold White 15000K) in a par38 package. I've run that over a 20 gallon established LPS & mushroom tank. The fixture that I used gave about 5" from the fixture to the water surface. Since that integrated bulb is not dimmable, the LPS didn't like it long term and shriveled up. I took that down and went back to what I had, which was more like the power of a CF, and the LPS is happy.

I don't know about a 36-54 watt LED bulb, but based on my experiences, that might be too much light depending on your tank depth and what you want to keep.

From what I've seen, most people running LED's always have them dimmed, not running at 100%. The par38's with integrated power supplies are a cheap way to go, but not dimmable.

The other problem that I had was not enough spread. I would have needed to increase the distance to the water surface, but the par38 bulb is quite tall, which means a lot of hood space. Most LED fixtures are pancake style with the heatsink on the backside and spread the lights out. I think that is a better design for small aquariums.

 

[schudini]

Oh, and I didn't like the idea of putting 120VAC directly over my aquarium. I much prefer having the power supply near the wall and running a lower DC voltage to the fixture. But I wouldn't recommend breaking open a par38 and separating out the power supply.