# LED lighting for Juwel Rio 400



## A Bull With Yogurts (4 Nov 2015)

Hi all,

The old T8 unit in my Rio 400 died tonight. Pretty sure I heard the ballast fizz out when I switched it on. I've doubled checked everything else (socket, fuse, switch, bulbs) just in case but they are all fine. As a result I'm pretty sure the ballast has given up the ghost.

I'm not interested in trying to bodge a fix, and will be damned if I'm going to spend north of £100 on Juwel's replacement T5 unit. Since I'm forced to replace the lights I've decided to take the leap down the LED route.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to a good LED unit that will suit a 5ft tank which is 50cm deep. Ideally I want to be able to grow both low and med light plants. I also really like the idea of a programmable interface which will allow to emulate sunrise, sunset and moonlight.

Thanks in advance.


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## Andy D (4 Nov 2015)

Are you happy to suspend the light or mount it on the rim or do you want a solution that will fit into the existing hood?


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## A Bull With Yogurts (4 Nov 2015)

Andy D said:


> Are you happy to suspend the light or mount it on the rim or do you want a solution that will fit into the existing hood?



Hi Andy,

Well, I'm open to ideas at the moment.

Let's be honest, the Juwel hood looks cack, so superficially I like the idea of ditching it. However, I'm not sure about an open tank. The evaporation would be an issue, as would my preferred choice of fish (some are jumpers). I've already been thinking about rigging up some DIY netting to eliminate the pescatorial suicides, but the evaporation might still a problem.

Suspending an LED unit from the ceiling would be too much hassle but I don't mind something suspended from a harness attached to the back of the tank. Likewise I don't mind something just mounted on the rim. My least favourite option is attaching LED strips to the existing Juwel hood and broken lighting unit. Just feels like a nasty bodge.

Any ideas?

I've found these so far...

http://www.warehouse-aquatics.co.uk...reshwater-led-light-unit-47w-1200-1500mm.html
http://www.aquariumgardens.co.uk/be...anted-aquarium-led-light-unit-6500k-722-p.asp


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## Imorpher (4 Nov 2015)

Hi "A Bull with Yogurts" - Fantastic name by the way...

If you are concerned about an open top tank then I couldn't recommend this little kit enough. I Imagine you could probably pick up the similar equipment yourself if you wanted to save some money. But i had great success with it. I ended up buying some extra corners for it so that I could cut out some areas for my filter in/out. 

Personally I have hatchets in my tank as well as some crazy cories so this is a life saver (I lost 2 hatchets on my first open tank night before I went to pick one of these up).

In regards to the lights I have only had experience with a similar beamswork unit on a 30cm cube tank. I find it to be very very strong but I was able to hook up a cheap controller off ebay and set it to 50% which helps an awful lot. I also used these to raise the unit to help with it's strength. 

On my larger tank I recently started using the these and love them so far. Again they can be cheaply controlled and seem fairly strong on my low maintenance tank so I have them turned down a bit.


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## A Bull With Yogurts (5 Nov 2015)

Imorpher said:


> If you are concerned about an open top tank then I couldn't recommend this little kit enough. I Imagine you could probably pick up the similar equipment yourself if you wanted to save some money. But i had great success with it. I ended up buying some extra corners for it so that I could cut out some areas for my filter in/out.



I saw a similar kit on another forum thread a while back. Seems like a great idea. Don't like the price though. Ouch.

I'm thinking about employing my Destroy-It-Yourself skills to knock up a PVC frame with 2 slotted tracks and then constructing 3 net panels which can slide in the tracks. Will save me having to remove the whole thing everytime I need to get access to the tank. Of course it won't turn out that easy, but that's the idea.  



Imorpher said:


> In regards to the lights I have only had experience with a similar beamswork unit on a 30cm cube tank. I find it to be very very strong but I was able to hook up a cheap controller off ebay and set it to 50% which helps an awful lot. I also used these to raise the unit to help with it's strength.
> 
> On my larger tank I recently started using the these and love them so far. Again they can be cheaply controlled and seem fairly strong on my low maintenance tank so I have them turned down a bit.



How easy is it to hook up a 3rd party controller to these units? Ideally I want to get a cheap programmable controller from eBay like yourself. Best solution would be something with a USB connection which can be programmed via PC software. That way the unit itself doesn't need any user interface.

That coupled with a lighting unit which has white, red and blue LEDs on separate channels so I can programme each individually over a 24hr period would be ideal. Any idea where to look?

Thanks.


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## A Bull With Yogurts (11 Nov 2015)

Just in case anymore stumbles across this thread in the future, I thought I'd do a concluding post.

I spend a good while going round in circles reading numerous anecdotal accounts of various LED units. Given that most of these were contradictory I decided to hunt down some decent articles based on science rather than individual experience. I came across three webpages in particular which dug into the technical details and proved very useful:

http://aquarium-digest.com/tag/aquabeam-led/
http://aquariumopinions.com/2013/07/07/aquarium-led-lights-controllers-what-is-best/
http://www.aquarium-pond-answers.com/2012/03/pur-vs-par-in-aquarium-lighting.html

Once I'd learnt my PUR from my PAR, my pulse width modulation from my current reduction, and more about LED colour spectrums than I ever thought possible...I decided that the best bet would be a couple of TMC AquaRay GroBeam 600 units.

I managed to pick up them up for £116.99 delivered which I thought was a decent deal (use discount code "NEWS10" for 10% off).


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## Andy D (11 Nov 2015)

Have you or do you plan on getting the controller for them?


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## A Bull With Yogurts (11 Nov 2015)

Andy D said:


> Have you or do you plan on getting the controller for them?



Yes indeed. Once of the reasons I bought them.

Looks like I'll have to get the (enormously overpriced) AquaRay 2 Channel one though, since I can't find a compatible 3rd party controller which uses PWM. All the cheap ones on eBay use current reduction for dimming.

I'll keep my eyes peeled on eBay for a second hand one. They seem to come up fairly regularly.


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## ian_m (11 Nov 2015)

Other T8 & T5 tube LED compatible units people here have used are these. Not sure there is one of the Rio 400's tubes length.

http://www.allpondsolutions.co.uk/a...antis-easy-led-universal-lighting-freshwater/

These are about 1.5-2 times the brightness of an equivalent T5 tube.


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