So confused about lights(LED)

[Nekko123]

I have done lots of reading about lighting for my 10 gal nano tank and I'm just as confused as when I started. All I want is the proper lighting for healthy corals and growth, as well as to enhance the beauty of the corals.

My questions are as follows:
1-How much lighting do I need and how is it measured (watts or lumens)?
2-What should the color temp be (Kelvin right). I know that I will need different LED's to achieve this, but how much of what should I get? I read about guys adding royal blue, reds, lime green etc. and I don't get it. Shouldn't a full spectrum 10K source be enough? Or how about 20K?

thanks

 

[lingwendil]

Watts and lumens are useless for LED lighting (and reef lighting in general) and you need to know the PAR requirements of the corals you intend to keep.

Color temperature is largely up to your personal taste, but most setups will be adjustable for color and intensity. I like a nice 14-20k sort of look personally.


My best recommended way to go, is find what other people are using to light similar sized tanks as to the one you will use, and look at what they are using as a starting point. Once you see something you like, read some reviews and find the potential issues people have with them.


What dimensions on the tank?

What are you intending to keep?

Building, buying, or using a kit?

If building, I can recommend a nice setup for you once we have more details.

 

[Fredfish]

First two questions to ask yourself:
1. What are you going to keep?
2. How much are you willing to spend?

1. How much Light

For a 10g nano, I think it is going to be hard to get an under powered light.

As it relates to how much, the acronym you want is PAR: photosynthetic active radiation. Unfortunately it is a bit costly to measure.

Your best bet is to narrow down you lighting choices first and then look at how others set them up for similarly sized tanks.

2. Colour Temp
This tells you roughly how your light is going to look to you. 10 to 14K will be more white, 20K will be quite blue.

3. LED colour makeup

LEDs emit light in a very narrow range. All white LEDs start with blue light centered around a narrow peak at 440- 450 nm and use white phosphors to absorb that blue light and radiate it out over a wider spectrum.

All white LEDs are deficient in light in three areas: the 470 nm to 550 nm range: below 450 nm, red light (those with 65K and higher colour temps).

A good LED light will also have LEDs to cover parts of those ranges. This does two things: improves the colours you see, gets corals to fluoresce colours ranging from blue to red. So, you need them for better colour.

The above goes back to how much you want to spend. A good LED light will have all those colours available.

When people talk about adding different LEDs, that is for a DIY light. Given the questions you are asking I suspect that is not a direction you are looking to go.

Lime is added to DIY fixtures to increase brightnes. our eyes are most sensitive to green light and a lime LED is centered on the green spectrum.

Back to how much you want to spend.

You can look at manufacturers in several categories

A. Cheap
- lights not well made and will not last as long, but good enough for a first light
- maybe not an ideal colour mix
- Mars Aqua, or similar budget chinese lights

B. Decent budget
- better colour mix
- better build quality
- Reef Breeders, ??? (not sure who else fits here)

C. Mainstream
- good colour mix (you can jump into premium lights here at a $ premium)
- good build quality
- AI/EchoTech, Kessil, GHL, Maxspect, Nano Box ...

Closing thought: Lots of people will tell you to buy x, its the bestest, because that's what they bought. All the above work and all offer good value, they just have different benefits and drawbacks.

Hope this helps.

 

[lingwendil]

My usual recommended setup lately starts with the RapidLED 20" premium heatsink, and a pair of 24w pucks and drivers from blueacro. That plus a controller of your choice would be a killer way to go. Add a 28-36v power supply for the LEDs, and a 12v supply for the fan and it's all assembly at that point.

https://www.rapidled.com/premium-enclosures/

https://blueacro.com/acrostar/


I run pretty much the same setup on my 20 long with a pair of the 20k pucks and get great color and growth. Great way to go on a medium budget if you don't want it too complex.

Nanobox arrays are also very nice, more spendy though.


Do you have a controller, or have one in mind? The feature set you want can make a difference cost wise as to going DIY or commercial.

 

[Fredfish]

That would make a nice light lingwendil.

I haven't priced out the components, but I bet for the same price you could pick up the Reef Breeders Nano-Light Plus.

 

[oreo57]

The LED chips in the blu-acro are far superior to anything Reef Breeders use.. though I would be more than happy to change that opinion.. w/ proof..

now doesn't make RB bad lights but it does add more of a shotgun approach.. More watts and less efficiency..

There are other unknowns which may or may not be important.. such as if programmable.. usually they use 8bit dimming..

a lot of minor details that can add up..

Shouldn't a full spectrum 10K source be enough?

Theoretically , yes but most LEd's in the high K range are simple royal blue emitters w/ yellow phosphor..
Making it "white-ish" but not really good "full spectrum".. Cyan range and red will always be short.. and violets non-existant..

Lets just say that you can have 10000k leds w/ "full spectrum" but you can create 10000k led arrays w/ "fuller" spectrum

link (large image and am lazy tonight):
http://www.wave-point.com/images/HO LED LightStrip/LED Light Strip-10000k Daylight.jpg

 

[lingwendil]

I go into some of my (highly opinionated, but based on experience and testing) pointers on what to look for in designing or choosing a rig on this thread here-

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2651007&page=2

Which gives a reasonably explained run down of sort of what you want, and at the end some teaser pics of my big bruiser build testbed

My personal advice is to stick with Luxeon or Cree for your LEDs in whatever you do, the cheap stuff is less efficient and doesn't last as long before losing significant output and/or burning their lenses.

Don't do cool white unless it's high CRI, as the usual cool white is pretty deficient in most cyan, blue, and red areas, and will need supplement to look good and grow well.

Theatrus (blueacro) has really gone the extra mile in choosing emitters from the best bins available, and only uses high quality brands for everything. Solderless connections are standard, and they have very versatile mounting holes. Highly recommended! He will customise your own loadout of emitters as well, I run a pair of his 24w boards with the Luxeon C, and run 4x royal blue, 1x blue, 1x high CRI white, 1x "mint", 1x violet, and couldn't be happier at the quality and price point.

 

[SFish]

Good post