Hi everyone Can I use LED light globes for a planted tank? Its going to be on a 3ft tank. it is 7w 6500k and 600lm per globe. I plan on using 3 globes.
Hi Guys, You can use them, but you have to be careful about which type. You can use GU10 downlighters, but then you can only use the 6000k lamps, the cool white ones (NOT the 4200k warm white lamps, they do not have the right wavelength emission for plant growth) in combination with red leds. That combination is essential if you want plant growth. Over a 60 cm tank use two 6W 6000k cool whites and two reds, they only come in 2.5 W. Lighting strips need heat sinks, there is a lot that has been written about them by Herman alias Wolf on this forum, a while back, go and do a search. Kind regards, Dirk
The ones I am talking about can be obtained from ACDC, I think they do mail order. Lamp fittings are dirt cheap @ R8 per fitting, you can screw this all into a standard aqaurium hood/lid. Those lights from P&P will not work, you need additional red light. Kind regards, Dirk
Thanks @Dirk. Will have a look at it. The white lights will be 6500k or 6000k, what k should the red be? Is it just a plain red gu10?
all depends on your light requirements and what you actually mean by a 'planted tank' .. low or high tech pres CO2 or not, as there are many options and budgets here ? Dirk is referring to Herman's 50/50 Leds strips which many of us use in low tech planted tanks for say shrimp/ fish breeding. They work ok, but if I go strip I rather opt for the stronger 5630s. I'm also using LED floods in some low tech shrimp tanks which also work well and are very easy to install compared to the strips. Then for higher tech LED tanks this is another chapter... where individual diodes and heat shrinks become the order of the day..
@Trev Pleco. It is for use in a low tech planted tank. No CO2. Just e.i ferts in NPK and Seachem Flourish
I have used these on H bar in the past ... still running but they are now 2 years old and it is time to replace them. Like what Dirk is saying about the red ... add this before on 36 degrees tank is it helped even with the above strip. Later Ferdie
Ok that made me look. thanks Dirk - my LED strip on Lucky 13's shelf was one of those resin sealed units - if was rather blue and the result was not great for new growth on the shelf. So I paid a visit to the LCM and got some 1m 5630 red strips - R40 ... just the LED's not cover or extrusion I am re-using some of the other that I have used in the past. Keen to see the difference this makes in growth. H bar is a must even on the strips that have an extrusion these things still get very hot. later Ferdie
I"m getting great growth with a mix of daylight and natural white strips, in fact too much damn growth hence always selling. I would suggest you are making too much of this red strip hype, IMO it's certainly not necessary unless you want to push out the red tones in your plants and fish. Dear old Amano knew his stuff and was one of the first to develop LED lights to his high standards of perfection and there ain't any sign of red strips in his very successful Aquasky ADA range. They are natural white.
I hear you .. just that these LED strips are very arctic blue .. so a bit of red why not - time will tell. As for mixing daylight and natural white - that does make sense esp with how focused the spectrum is on cheap LED's. Later Ferdie
I have always liked that pink vibe that grolux and aquastar give to your plants and your fish colours really pop, so presume the red strip thrown into the mix would do the same..? Might try it in the CRS tank, come to think of it
Hi Trevor and Ferdie, The problem with LEDs as opposed to flourescent tubes is that each type of ELD only pushes out light of a narrow band of wavelengths. So in a flourescent you can have a whole spectrum, but this does not apply when you go LED, then you need to MIX the LEDs to give you the right combination of wavelengths required for plant growth. So Trevor, I am absolutely sure that our dear Amano did his homework just right and that he has a mix of LEDs in his lights. Do you have one of those lights? What I want to ask you to do is to look into the LEDs on your planted tank when they are on, and I am sure you will see colour differences. I seem to remember you showing us a pic of your LEDs and seeing different colours. So what I am saying is instead of just going Local China Mall, just add a bit of brains and add some red LEDs as well, its a no brainer. What I want you to do as well please is to go and look at this local website : http://www.aquashine-led.co.za/ . This guy is now making these LEDs strips, and I have a few, with red and cool white combined and they are working for plant growth just fine. However, don't go under 9W, they just don't have the light intensity needed. Kind regards, Dirk
Thanks Dirk ... yeah fully agree on the spectrum of the LED's Also playing with just - as in only light source - Red and Blue "grow LED" ... nothing great to report, but additive I suspect it will be a different story. Not all LCM's have red strips all the time, so if you find some get spares - they run way hotter than the equivalent type and wattage of normal strip. Later Ferdie