# TMC grobeam 1500 tile



## SRP3006 (8 Apr 2019)

Hi all,


Currently planning setting up a high tech 48x24x24 aquarium, can anyone help me with my lights.
I have a pair of TMC grobeam 1500 tile, fully controllable and I can't find out much information about them. TMC say that the lights will grow any plant and that 100% will be too strong. I'm not so sure  The lights will be inside the hood and will be roughly 20" from light to substrate.
Has anyone had experience with these lights or can anyone help with the strength of them. Ideally I'm planning on a carpet plant so if they are not strong enough then I'd rather invest before watching the plants struggle when flooded.
Cheers.


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## nnnal (8 Apr 2019)

No experience with these lights but this is what i could find:

"The GroBeam XB-D Ultima is an over all wide angle 6500K freshwater aquarium light for "High Light" planted or simply "Fish Only" aquariums (for those who desire the most natural light for their plant/fish health)

•	Consists of (10) 6,500K extremely high output NEW licensed Natural Daylight XB-D LED emitters, not mix of colored emitters in a vain attempt to duplicate optimum PUR/PAR

•	For "High Light" planted aquariums, best results achieved under 25 inches of depth

•	2058 Lumens, PAR 148 uEinsteins/sec/m2 @16 inches at maximum PUR (not CRI & other gimmicks), providing high light tropical sun natural daylight in the natural spikes needed by plants.
There is simply NO better planted aquarium LED for those looking normal natural growth (including the models #400 tile & #600 strip).
With the highest water proof rating and longest warranty and there is still NO BETTER Planted or Fish only freshwater light!!" 

But maybe you know all of this already 






Sent from my SM-N900W8 using Tapatalk


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## SRP3006 (8 Apr 2019)

Thank you for taking the time to look that up. yes I've read most of that before online and it's similar to what TMC have said to me. The only thing I struggle with is the lumens, just over 4000 lumens for 2 tiles over a 400 litre tank gives me 10 lumens per litre which is advertised as low light unless I'm misunderstanding something. I'd say I'm a noob to this, I've kept aquariums for years but never gone this dark. 

I just don't want to get 12 months down the line and wished I'd upped the lighting from the beginning to give myself more options.


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## X3NiTH (8 Apr 2019)

These units are exceptionally bright at 200% (100% per channel, has two channels hence 200%).

I run lowish light for Buce and I'm only using one channel at 20% 5inches above a 1foot deep water column (not accounting for substrate depth), halfway up where the Buce sit should be getting about 50par (calculated) and the substrate about 10 (crypt plant growth on the substrate is very slow for the species type). Into the same tank when I was running a higher light regime with fast growing stem plants the maximum I ran was about 35% on each channel.

You can plug the numbers into the Rotala Butterfly Lighting Calculator using Cree bulbs as the output type to give you an idea what to expect, you can have a play about with numbers to get the ideal preferences you want. The calculator has a reasonable degree of accuracy.


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## SRP3006 (8 Apr 2019)

Thanks, they are super bright to the eye. Great little tool that. So after punching in the numbers it comes back with a par rating of 12 at substrate. Which is quite low according to what I've read.


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## rebel (8 Apr 2019)

Seems like there is not enough red in the spectrum.  TMC is great quality though.


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## alto (8 Apr 2019)

SRP3006 said:


> TMC say that the lights will grow any plant and that 100% will be too strong


I would ask for sample tanks (and plant species) using these lights at that water column height 

With only 2 of these tiles on a 120 x 60 x 60cm aquarium, you are expecting each tile to provide even light distribution over a 60cm x 60cm area 
I’m sceptical - to provide such, these lights would need to be exceptional  
(Look for the (rather technical) Lighting Articles written by Sanjay Joshi, Professor of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, for Advanced Aquarist)

In addition, for “moderate to high” substrate PAR at over 45cm water column height requires optimized lighting design - is there evidence that TMC has upgraded the optics and LEDs etc since these lights came to market several years ago?

You can find some (excellent) older journals on ukaps with these tiles, as I recall most are 36-40cm tall tanks 

To grow “anything” - without special consideration to optimize light (limit any shading) - in a 60cm tall tank, you need lighting more along the lines of Kessil A360, AI Prime Freshwater HD (not just the Prime Freshwater) etc ... 
(I’d start with 2 x A360 or 3 x Prime FW HD)

Having said that, with suitable scape design, I suspect you could grow very nice carpets of Micranthemum Monte Carlo, Eleocharis acicularis mini, Marsilea crenata etc
Glossostigma elatinoides is possible I suspect but would not be the very compact, dense carpet you see in ADA display tanks, I suspect Elatine Hydropiper would slowly disappear 

Depending upon your tank design, you might begin by establishing the carpet with lower water column height, then slowly raising water level (again depending upon chosen plants species)

Obviously you’ll want good CO2 level and flow - during the transition form emerge leaf to submerse leaf, add higher levels of CO2, slowly decreasing this when livestock is added


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## SRP3006 (9 Apr 2019)

alto said:


> I would ask for sample tanks (and plant species) using these lights at that water column height
> 
> With only 2 of these tiles on a 120 x 60 x 60cm aquarium, you are expecting each tile to provide even light distribution over a 60cm x 60cm area
> I’m sceptical - to provide such, these lights would need to be exceptional
> ...


Thank you very much, as you say you are sceptical, so am I. That's why I'm trying to figure out if i should supplement the leds with a set of t5s for example. I'm afraid kessils are out of my price range somewhat 
I had these lights over a larger (48x30x24) Malawi mbuna aquarium for 3 years and they did light it very very well but a planted tank is another thing altogether. 
I'm not trying to grow all of the hardest plants, but a very nice dense carpet of Eleocharis acicularis would be my goal. Plus enough light to make red plants happy and healthy. 

I have quickly looking into t5 and adding them to my set up similar to what some people have done in their journals on here in similar sized tanks. However getting feedback and advice on here is much more valuable than trawling the web.


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## Edvet (9 Apr 2019)

T5's will be a reasonably priced alternative for lighting all situations, easy to DIY in all sizes and configurations. Just for very deep tanks (>60 cm) they might lack a bit of oomph.


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## SRP3006 (9 Apr 2019)

Edvet said:


> T5's will be a reasonably priced alternative for lighting all situations, easy to DIY in all sizes and configurations. Just for very deep tanks (>60 cm) they might lack a bit of oomph.


That's why I was thinking maybe 2 t5s or even 4 if you guys think I will need it. Along side my leds which I can set at different outputs. 
They are very cheap compared to leds for the original outlay. The tank itself is 60cm tall. Take off a bit for substrate at the bottom and water level at the top and it's quite a bit less.


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## SRP3006 (9 Apr 2019)

With regards to the set up, I will be running a fx6 with a full length spray bar and a fluval 306 with minimal media inside and inline diffuser with spray bar. Backed up by several koralias. Which 'should' give me adequate flow. That's why I don't want the lights to be my stumbling block so to speak.


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## alto (9 Apr 2019)

SRP3006 said:


> Which 'should' give me adequate flow.


You don’t want a river in there  - not many of the available aquarium plant species are from high flow (natural) waters 

If you look at the many tanks on Tropica’s Inspiration page, some have that “magical” 10X flow, but many are running with stock internal filters (turnover is likely closer to 3-4X) ... it’s about having “good” flow throughout the tank

Just like most LEDs, most T5’s setups provide excellent lighting for tanks up to 45cm tall 
Look at how Giesemann positions adjacent bulbs, also the design and material of their reflectors (& T5 specifications)

You don't want to keep adding more light to the mid to upper water column, you want light that’s penetrating to the substrate - that’s the challenge with deep tanks



SRP3006 said:


> The tank itself is 60cm tall. Take off a bit for substrate at the bottom and water level at the top and it's quite a bit less.


this is a general truth for all tank heights 

Look at Filipe Oliveira Youtube channel - he has quite a few taller tanks (60-80cm) and lighting details may be answered in comments, if not included in the tank description 

Juwel showcased their new LED system at Interzoo 2018 (great video on George Farmer Youtube channel) in their Lido  tanks which are 58/65 cm tall, so worth looking at plant species used (aquascapes are grown in, not just planted for the show)
If you contact Juwel, you can likely suss out details on CO2, lighting etc for those amazing plant scapes 

With your present TMC tiles, you should be able to grow a nice MC or Eleocharis mini carpet, I’d look at adding a 3rd Tile (should be able to pick one up fairly cheaply) for more even light distribution across the tank, rather than adding T5’s 
Both of these tend to be easily grown in with the Dry Start Method (check out Jurijs mit JS for the densest MC carpet ever technique  ) - which is a budget friendly route (recall George Farmer’s one pot Iwagumi challenge  )


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## SRP3006 (9 Apr 2019)

alto said:


> You don’t want a river in there  - not many of the available aquarium plant species are from high flow (natural) waters
> 
> If you look at the many tanks on Tropica’s Inspiration page, some have that “magical” 10X flow, but many are running with stock internal filters (turnover is likely closer to 3-4X) ... it’s about having “good” flow throughout the tank
> 
> ...


Thank you for a detailed and thorough post as always.


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## SRP3006 (9 Apr 2019)

I'll check out those scapes and lighting co2 used etc. I'll look into another tile aswell.
plenty of information to try and absorb. DSM is an option for me as daily water changes could be a issue.


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## SRP3006 (9 Apr 2019)

Like I said I just want enough light to grow a decent carpet and healthy looking plants. Not the fastest growing/spreading plants.


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## alto (9 Apr 2019)

You’ve not mentioned substrate (I think ) but
Tropica Aquarium Soil - use regular for the base, then powder on top (you’ll see this technique in many ADA videos)
For any elevated areas, use a *sinking* pumice or lava type gravel (0.5 - 2cm range for random packing and improved aeration/flow, you can place this is nylon stockings or mesh bags)

(again look at ADA Power Sand for an example of what this base mix should look like)

Then follow the Tropica 90Day App - Tropica has done an awesome website, just keep opening all the embedded links


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## SRP3006 (9 Apr 2019)

Substrate is planned on being thin layer of dirt/aquatic compost capped with sand.


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## SRP3006 (9 Apr 2019)

alto said:


> You’ve not mentioned substrate (I think ) but
> Tropica Aquarium Soil - use regular for the base, then powder on top (you’ll see this technique in many ADA videos)
> For any elevated areas, use a *sinking* pumice or lava type gravel (0.5 - 2cm range for random packing and improved aeration/flow, you can place this is nylon stockings or mesh bags)
> 
> ...


I have crushed lava rock ready to go in some of the other halves tights


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## SRP3006 (9 Apr 2019)

I have read Tim Harrison's guide on this forum hundreds of times to try and make sure i limit my noob mistakes.


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## SRP3006 (10 Apr 2019)

alto said:


> You don’t want a river in there  - not many of the available aquarium plant species are from high flow (natural) waters
> 
> If you look at the many tanks on Tropica’s Inspiration page, some have that “magical” 10X flow, but many are running with stock internal filters (turnover is likely closer to 3-4X) ... it’s about having “good” flow throughout the tank
> 
> ...


I've sourced a 3rd tile as suggested so at least I have 3 of the same. Like you said very cheaply


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