LED Longevity on Aquariums?

[punman]

Almost five years ago I purchased three LED light units for three aquariums. Barring severe mechanical or structural issues, I was curious to how long they should last. My three are still working but they are probably on only three hours a day each. Have any of you had LEDs more years than me or run them longer per day, so you could give me feedback?

I know when we renovated our kitchen/living room six and a half years ago, we put LED pot lights in. With an estimated 25,000 hours life, I figured they would last almost seven years if on for 10 hours a day. I decided to keep a chart and track each light. Well, I don't think they have been running even ten hours a day average and at this point 75% of them have been replaced and they started failing after a year and a half.

Are these aquarium LEDs any more reliable? Do individual LEDs quit working one at a time, or does the whole thing fail all at once? My aquarium fixtures are not dimmable but if they were, at 50% intensity, would they last twice as long, or is it not a linear function?

Are LED units made now, more reliable than ones made ten years ago? Do more expensive ones have better track records?

When giving feedback, please indicate average hours per day use, and number of years running as of now, or at how many years of use did they fail.

 

[TwoHedWlf]

It depends a lot on the quality of the light fitting, how hard they drive the LEDs, how hot they get. More often than complete failure is that they'll get dimmer over time. I have 2 cheap LED units over my tank. They are noticably dimmer than brand new after about a year, on 16 hours/day.

If they are dimmable you(Typically) get better power efficiency, and longer life. If they're being driven hard it can be exponentially better life.

 

[chopshop]

I got a phillips coralcare light, originally it was for my reef but that's now my Flowerhorn tank...ive had the light 5 years now and in theory this light should (touch wood) last its lifetime.
One of the main reasons led fail is either over heating or cheap parts ...the coralcare is neither.
It won't never over heat because it doesn't use fans for cooling...it uses passive cooling, not that I will get that these days because I only run it at a peak of 12% before it atarts to ramp down for the evening.
In my reefing days it ramped up to a max of 65% and that was enough for sps corals and clams

 

[punman]

Having never done saltwater fish, I am not familiar with Coralcare. I assume that is LED you are talking about.

 

[FJB]

My mid-to-long term experience is limited to Finnex Planted+ LEDs. Currently I have 7 units in use, 5x 36”, and 2x 48”. By choice, all are the basic model, no remote control, no programs, and no intensity control (just on/off). Each has two switches that allow to have only blue (crepuscular) light, only white and red, or all three together. I run them all with all 3 colors, on external timers, running for 1hours daily. The units range from 6 to 2 years old. I have not experienced any noticeable change in intensity over their life spans, and all work well.
I did have one unit, same model, 48”, which stopped working properly after 3+ years. It became flickery and I replaced it. Don’t know if it is just the power source, but being out of warranty, I took it down.

I also have 2x Nicrew G2, 36” LEDs. These do have intensity control and some programmability, and remote controls. I don’t use those features, which I don’t want or appreciate, and I run them at full intensity for 10 hours daily. They are less bright than the Finnex but I like them a lot. I also have them on external timers. It has been 1+ year and so far I am happy but don’t know of long term life.
Prior to those LEDs I use fluorescent exclusively. Still run two of those, 48”. I like them, but they use more electricity and it is becoming difficult to find tubes at good prices.
I am convinced that not using the on/off switches daily, on any light, but having them on timers instead, results in much longer service life. The on/off switches invariable go bad before the lights themselves, so investing on smart timers is a valuable move.

 

[FJB]

10 hours daily.

 

[Trouser Cough]

I have direct experience in this area and from a manufacturer’s perspective rather than an end user’s. LED fixtures consist of three components:

- The LED which is basically a glowing rock.

- The minor electronic wizardry that is often referred to as a starter, a power supply or an ignitor and

- the housing to hold it together

The housing is not generally prone to failure and the glowing rock will produce fewer lumens over time but they normally aren’t particularly failure prone either. The starters however, are often low grade junk that mfg’s assume t be a consumable. When your fixture poops the bed swap out the power supply to another if you have one, mostly to verify that that’s what failed… then buy a slightly larger one to supply the increasing demand of the now aged diodes. Try to find a power supply w/ adjustable settings.

Do it right and you’ll get more light from the same fixture.

 

[chopshop]

Having never done saltwater fish, I am not familiar with Coralcare. I assume that is LED you are talking about.

Yes it's LED , 104 high powered leds .
I run it the same as I dud when I was reefing , 6am to midnight, ramping up and then down again.
Other than the lower intensity ( 12%) I run it now , the colour spectrum is now changed too
The blue lighting that makes reefs pop is lost on the freshwater side, so now I run it warm white with the reds and greens.

 

[punman]

Would LEDs designed specifically for saltwater situations be typically of better quality than those with freshwater in mind, or not necessarily so?

 

[Trouser Cough]

Would LEDs designed specifically for saltwater situations be typically of better quality than those with freshwater in mind, or not necessarily so?

My experience in the LED industry is not specific to marine aquariums so there may be more to the issue than I'm aware of however, LED quality industry wide is a factor of efficacy. The best LED's provide more lumens per watt than the rest of the diodes grown. In my experience the other aspects are filters placed atop the LED like a lens.

Last I checked the industry efficacy standard was roughly 160-180 lumens/Watt for the good stuff. Those that you'd normally expect to find in an aquarium fixture are unlikely to be among the higher quality LED's. Commodity oriented fixtures have commodity oriented components.