Flood Light LEDs.

[Anonymous]

I once had a setup lit like this. Eventually I was annoyed by the uneven lighting throughout the tank.

 

[anderson_p_r]

Ok, I ordered 3 LED bulbs on eBay. They're 3x 4W 6500K. We'll see what they look like. I spent less than $20 for the bulbs and sockets so even if it's crap it's not expensive. Still...36W of LED on a 20g long should look nice, right?

 

[anderson_p_r]

So, I was at my Dad's this weekend and noticed this little guy hanging on the wall in his shop. I borrowed it and will take some comparison photos on my 10g to share. It seems fairly bright, 15w, but the beam angle is so broad I don't know what the intensity will really be like. I know the color temp is wrong, but I'm just curious what this style light looks like on the tank. Updates to come.

http://www.lowes.com/pd_458686-43921-MPL1001-LED15K840_0__?productId=4741018

 

[anderson_p_r]

Ok, so here are my comparison pics of my DIY 52w CFL fixture vs. the 15w LED flood light.  I know the color temp is wrong on the LED, but the intensity still lagged.  Maybe a cool white LED would be brighter looking?  I'd be happier with two of these over my 10g, considering the output I'd rather see the 2 of the 20w 6500k on ebay rather than the 10w.  Seeing as that would cost $60, I'd just as soon build my CFL fixture for about $20.  I still have the spot light LEDs on the way, we'll see how those perform.

In the photos the light sources are roughly the same height, btw.

<img src="http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd373/anderson_p_r/ledvscfl001.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo ledvscfl001.jpg"/>

<img src="http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd373/anderson_p_r/ledvscfl002.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo ledvscfl002.jpg"/>

 

[BillHN]

http://www.youtube.com/user/CorvusOscen/videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etaZCdBLczQ


He uses LED Floodlights. Also http://darkstaraquatics.ning.com/


And the tanks seem to do great.

 

[anderson_p_r]

I got my 3x4w LED lights in today. Pics to come, but preliminary playing tells me it will take more of them than I thought. I'm going to rig all three up on my 10g and take some pics.

 

[anderson_p_r]

Here are the photos, in my opinion the camera is doing the LEDs a favor and makes them look brighter than they are.  Not bad, honestly if I was going to replace my DIY CFL fixture with DIY LED I'd double it to 6 of these 12w bulbs to make it look "the same", but then I'd be at 72w vs 52w for my CFL fixture.

Costs for 6x 12w bulbs and sockets would be about $40?  The other option would be the 2x 20w flood lights, But that would cost $60?  DIY CFL was about $25. Thoughts?

<img src="http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd373/anderson_p_r/NEWLED002.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo NEWLED002.jpg"/>

<img src="http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd373/anderson_p_r/NEWLED005.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo NEWLED005.jpg"/>

<img src="http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd373/anderson_p_r/NEWLED004.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo NEWLED004.jpg"/>

<img src="http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd373/anderson_p_r/NEWLED003.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo NEWLED003.jpg"/>

<img src="http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd373/anderson_p_r/NEWLED006.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo NEWLED006.jpg"/>

Also worth mentioning is that I believe I found the reason these bulbs are notorious for early failure. I stumbled upon a video online of a guy who took apart one that failed on him and he found there was a lack of thermal paste between components. Before turning these on (other than to make sure they worked) I disassembled them and added thermal paste where it was very obviously lacking. It must be working because the heatsink is quite warm now . We'll see how long they last and if the plants are affected by the change in light. I suspect they will not grow as well with the LED, but I may be wrong.

 

[Lamental Jester]

Is that flame moss I see? Kudos on the aquascaping! I find the smaller tanks are ususually the hardest to scape

 

[anderson_p_r]

I'm not sure what moss it is, I guess I assumed it was java?

 

[Lamental Jester]

They way it's growing up makes it look like flame moss to me... I could be wrong though

 

[Anonymous]

Wow, that is actually cool! I hope your experience with the "lighting change" goes better than mine. It was like I changed the whole ecosystem or something switching to LED. I did as much research as possible but my whole tank is going through a whole equilibrium balance AGAIN, with different algae and weird bacterial growths (cyno).