LED tube comparison - Budget lighting attempt #1

[Paintguy]

I got 5 ( 11watts each ) LED tubes on Ebay for about $33 shipped and a bright blue LED strip for $19 shipped. Here are some pictures to compare the LEDs to my previous lights. The 2nd tank shot is over 1000 little LED's on my 75 gal tank.

Note that each of the white LED tubes has its own transformer making the plug mess. They do not give a shimmer on the water like the Marineland LED set up as there are to many points of light in the tubes and they are laying directly on the glass. In the end I am not saving any $ on my power bill directly but these do not heat up the water either.

After all my playing around they look about the same as my dual 36" light, but the LED's reflect on my wall :x . Plan to raise them off the glass a bit and make a cover soon not to mention hide all the wiring hanging off the side.

 

[protocl]

Niice.

You know: ikea sells a set of 4 LED strips for $50, with a switch to change colours.

 

[shua]

are you able to put a kelvin rating on them??

 

[Paintguy]

I don't have anything to measure the actual light output or color, but I set my camera in full manual mode so they were shot at the same speed and aperture.

 

[icer711]

hey those tubes look just like mine... if they are the transformer is not required and only give out half power when using them

 

[Paintguy]

wow, just plugged one in direct and you are right about them being twice as bright.I was wondering why they had a normal plug into the transformer... but why would they even waste their profit shipping them if they are not needed?

will get an updated picture when I am really awake tomorrow.

 

[icer711]

i was told there for power surges.... but if there plugged in to a surge protector i dont see why we need them

 

[Paintguy]

The guy I purchased them from responded with this:

"you must the use the transformers orthe bulbs will burn out, if you dont use them the warrenty in null and void, please use them, thats why they are there!"

I think I will leave one of the 5 on without the transformer and do a little personal test.

 

[icer711]

lol i dont know what to say... we dont have any bulbs.. we have LED's (light emitting diodes) think i heard something similar.... but you got a warranty? wonder when mine is if there even is one
how the tank look with those transformers off it? and what size i still haven't figured out where to put mine

 

[Paintguy]

Yea.. I did not know anything about a warranty. I have other LED's that get warmer than the one I have on without the transformer. 3 tubes at normal power and one plugged straight in is bright enuf for me. Just have to make something to block the reflection outside of the tank.

 

[Paintguy]

update on removing one transformer to brighten up the LED tube which also made it run about 15 deg. warmer.

I only removed one out of 5 as a test and the result in one month was that the LED tube is now less bright than the ones with the transformers left on. The color has also changed from a warm white to more of a cool white, but again it has dulled a lot so I would not recommend bypassing the transformer on the brand that I got.

 

[TRD_Power]

Hmm... I wouldn't mind doing this to my 75g. How do they do with live plants? Not much of an LED pro, so I dunno if my low light plants will get the proper lighting if I went this route.

 

[Paintguy]

Well.. all of mine even with the transformers seem to have dulled a little. I have them on my 46gal now only because my main light ballast went out. I am not sold on them... at least not this style with many lights at low voltage. Appears to be near equal to a florescent tube at the same voltage. (3 LED tubes at 11 watts each = a 25 watt flourescent). Another negative is the reflection on the wall behind the top of the tank as you would need to put them under some kind of cover to avoid this.

I think Larry has one of the Marineland LED's that uses several 3 volt LED's... I still may try one of those.

 

[Kaie]

Do have the seller still?

I have purchased some before but i have lost the seller info since =[.

I need to get some more.

 

[Paintguy]

The LED Tubes that I have actually have the phone number on a piece of paper in them:

Power Bright LED (718) 937-9300

 

[larry.beck]

I have the Marineland DoubleBright LED setup on my 125g, and a DIY setup on one of my 55g. To be honest, I plan to do LED on all of my show tanks. I don't like fluorescents because I get far too much algae and the light feels more "harsh" to me. Neither of my setups is terribly bright, but I spend a lot of time looking at how saltwater tanks are designed and maintained and the tremendous growth in LED setups for reefs has been amazing. They're still more DIY than kits, but nearly everyone that tries it talks about how they have to start with fewer hours or use a dimmable drivers to let their corals adjust. And that's transitioning from metal halide to LED! There's no doubt you can make these guys incredibly bright if that's what you want. Most of the reef tanks are using 2/3'rds blue, which aren't bright but add the color that corals need to stimulate growth, and only 1/3 white. These builds are typically from 3 watt lights, mostly made by Cree (XP-G and XR-E models). I'm using the lower levels of lighting - the Marineland is, I believe, built from 1 watt lights (14 white and 7 blue on my 36" light).

 

[Paintguy]

I noticed that Marineland has come out with a system with more LED's packed in to work for the reef guys. I wish they made one with more white lights to better fit a freshwater system for someone that wants it a little brighter. And if they put the moon lights on a separate plug!

 

[larry.beck]

The reef lighting is 2-3 times as bright as the DoubleBright, according to the pre-release specifications I saw. Same mixture of 2/3 white, 1/3 blue lenses, which (to me) means you don't get a blue light at all. In fact, pure white in an LED typically doesn't look very good.

I completely agree with the double power supply - the problem is that they're keeping their costs down by using one controller module for all of the lenses.

 

[Paintguy]

I thought they mixed more blue in for the reef. Set up like this I think I would like the color output. I am not sure I need that much light compared to the double bright though. I did notice the Double Bright shows a life of 17,000 hours on the box where the reef capable notes 50,000 hours.

Not being able to run a timer and keep the moon lights on drives me nuts though.

 

[larry.beck]

I'm worried that the reef unit will be too bright for my tastes - I 'd want to see it on a tank before I bought one (which I very nearly did earlier this week).

For $120 or so, I'll take my 17k hours and happily buy a new one in ~5 years.

The timer issue is the only downside, in my opinion. Major flaw that I believe will significantly reduce their penetration in the reef (particularly FOWLR) community. While it's called their "reef" unit, I don't think serious reefers will use this unit because it's still not leveraging the 3 watt cree lights, meaning it's not as efficient and won't provide nearly as much PAR.