which LED ligthing is the best for me?

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
jcardona1;5047451;5047451 said:
None of the above, since you want a high light tank. All of the LED fixtures mentioned above are very low lumens output, which will also hold true for PAR.

The Double Bright Marineland fixture is a joke. The Reef Ready is less of a joke, but too expensive, and not enough for a highlight setup. A single T5HO bulb puts out 5000 lumens. None of those are even close to that.

The floodlamp linked by Chonh is good for very small, shallow tanks. I did a PAR test on the 10w floodlamp at 12" high. It was giving me 35-45 PAR. That's decent PAR, but if you try to put it on a taller tank, the PAR will decrease dramatically, and you're right back at low lighting.

For a serious high-light planted tank using LED lighting, you really need to go DIY, or spend serious money on the true-reef fixtures. For DIY you'll want 3w LEDs and will want to drive them anywhere from 700-1000mA for the most light.
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well i recently purchased a 300 watts led for about 700dollars made specially for the purpose of growing house plants it is placed at a height of almost 3 feet over the plants and seems to be doing great so far , am i missing something here
 
You know man,... I was just thinking about your post and thought I'd offer a helpful suggestion. I'm no electrical engineer here, and I prefer the simpler lighting set ups, but you seemed concerned bout you floating cover and fish jumping out. Before I had kids around, my planted tanks did not have glass tops. I submerged plastic grid right below the surface and arranged the coverage on top. This way deterred the fish from jumping out, and I actually could control where more light would shine through by just fixing them and trimming back the coverage where I wanted. I planted the higher light demand plants under the thinner to no coverage areas and seemed to work out pretty good.. the tank trim on bottom and coverage hid the grid from viewing....just a suggestion. Good luck man. Sounds cool with what you are planning.
 
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