LED's and Plants.

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aquaculture

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May 5, 2009
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$99 for only 12 watts worth of LEDs is way too exspensive. You could build an LED system yourself and save a lot of money. White LEDs are all that is necessary for fresh water plants, don't waste $ on actinic blue leds.
I am currently growing Glossostigma under LED lighting in my 225 right now - so it can be done.
 
O2surplus;4447371; said:
$99 for only 12 watts worth of LEDs is way too exspensive. You could build an LED system yourself and save a lot of money. White LEDs are all that is necessary for fresh water plants, don't waste $ on actinic blue leds.
I am currently growing Glossostigma under LED lighting in my 225 right now - so it can be done.
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that's not entriely true photosynthesis peaks at 2 different areas in the blue region of the spectrum one at 420-430 nm and a higher peak at 450-460 nm both of those are common actinic wavelengths.


it is MYTH that actinic wavelengths are useless to plants (look up a chart on spectral peaks of photosynthesis / absorbtion peaks of chlorophyll and you will find that the highest peaks are in the blue region)



i figure ill post this here as what im asking also pertains to the OP and he would probably beenfit from the responses as well

i am also considering LED lighting for my tank as well i was looking at constructing my own array and buying the LED's from www.RapidLED.com another memeber on here built a lighting system for his tank and bought LED's and drivers from this site, i'd use a mix of white,blue and red LED's (red and blue because thats where chlorophyll absorbs most strongly and white because i'd rather look at a purplish white than a just purple tank.) i was considering a ratio of 3:2:1 (White:Blue:Red) but i would really like some feedback from some of the planted tank gurus on here on how many i need and such. I will be going with moderate lighting.

AND NO ! don't suggest i go with T5HO lamps instead. If i wanted to go with flourescent i would've rigged up an overdriven normal output system already (which by the way is basically what a HO lamp is it's an overdriven normal output lamp)
 
it is MYTH that actinic wavelengths are useless to plants (look up a chart on spectral peaks of photosynthesis / absorbtion peaks of chlorophyll and you will find that the highest peaks are in the blue region)



I wasn't arguing that plants don't need a blue peak for photosynthesis. I know they do. If you read the Cree LED datasheets you'll notice that "white" LED's atually start out as a BLUE LED and then a phosphor is added which causes "white" light to be emitted. The "white LED's actually produce a peak in both the RED and BLUE regions of the spectrum , and are quite able to produce adequate PAR for plant growth.
I have experimented with blue leds on my plant tank for raising the overall Kelvin rating of my lighting and found the additional blue unnecessary as the white leds already produced light in the 8k region.

So unless you want your planted tank to look like a reef tank, don't waste your money on BLUE leds.:ROFL:
 
O2surplus;4448132; said:
So unless you want your planted tank to look like a reef tank, don't waste your money on BLUE leds.:ROFL:
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exactly. i dont know why anyone would support adding actinic lights to a freshwater planted tank. it looks like crap. i've even taken out my 10,000K lights and went back to 6500k because it ended up being too blue for me. blue lights on freshwater, especially a planted tank, looks absolutely terrible. who cares if they're capable of growing plants.
 
Zander_The_RBP;4447865; said:
that's not entriely true photosynthesis peaks at 2 different areas in the blue region of the spectrum one at 420-430 nm and a higher peak at 450-460 nm both of those are common actinic wavelengths.


it is MYTH that actinic wavelengths are useless to plants (look up a chart on spectral peaks of photosynthesis / absorbtion peaks of chlorophyll and you will find that the highest peaks are in the blue region)



i figure ill post this here as what im asking also pertains to the OP and he would probably beenfit from the responses as well

i am also considering LED lighting for my tank as well i was looking at constructing my own array and buying the LED's from www.RapidLED.com another memeber on here built a lighting system for his tank and bought LED's and drivers from this site, i'd use a mix of white,blue and red LED's (red and blue because thats where chlorophyll absorbs most strongly and white because i'd rather look at a purplish white than a just purple tank.) i was considering a ratio of 3:2:1 (White:Blue:Red) but i would really like some feedback from some of the planted tank gurus on here on how many i need and such. I will be going with moderate lighting.

AND NO ! don't suggest i go with T5HO lamps instead. If i wanted to go with flourescent i would've rigged up an overdriven normal output system already (which by the way is basically what a HO lamp is it's an overdriven normal output lamp)
Click to expand...

i heards plants grow wider and more lush under red light and taller under blue so maybe do a 3white:2reds:1blue
 
i don't know about you guys but all tanks i've seen that had actinic lights on them looked much better than yellowish looking tanks


Blue tint looks best IMO

Remember colours are extremely subjective some people can't stand anything bluer than 4100k for their houses (assuming using cfls) while others are comfortable with 6500k lamps. Same sort of thing with aqauriums.



Pow_yangz actualy it's the exact oposite bluer light (according to hydroponics grows cause lush growth (but shorter) while red cause spindly tall growth put them together and it's great but i really don't want my tank looking too purple.
 
Technically its a power supply, not a ballast, but your concept is correct. The power supply is usually the weak link in any LED fixture.
 
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