I've been looking at LED lighting too (common pastime I reckon eh?)
I need a new light for my daughters 50Cm 50L tank. It came with a hood that carries a single T8, which just won't do.
I have my own 100L 60Cm wide tank which came with a 3xT5/24W Aquaone light, it looks nice, except for the legs looks less than super.
The glass on my daughters tank is very thin, 6mm I imagine, maybe less, can't find my calipers.
Seeing as I'm a stingy sod I've been looking on eBay, have found the Arcadia Classica for £60, the Aqua one Plantglo for £70 and a generic 2xT5/24W for £50
As far as energy and bulb consumption goes it's a no brainer, the T5 will eat 70KWh more a year (8hrs daily) and will require new bulbs every 12 to 18 months I gather. 70KWh don't exactly cost a fortune mind but two T5 tubes will run me what, £35? So a quick ball park figure if the LED unit lasts 5 years and we assume that in those 5 years I'd go through 8 T5's and that 70KWh will average £6 over them 5 years that's £170 in tubes and power, not an insignificant amount.
And by what I see and hear people write and say the LED units outperform the twin T5's in light output.
The temptation to sell the triple T5 aqua one unit and buy 3 60Cm LED jobbies is strong. (I reckon maybe two LED units would be appropriate for the 100L but I could be wrong?
Another added bonus would be the moonlight. Getting the little rocker switches out and wiring in two clocks should be relatively easy. The electrical part is very easy for me, making it stay IP67 compliant a bit more of a challenge. perhaps I could replace the mains cord with a 4 core cable and do it that way, sounds like a better plan really.
If the drivers are PWM types, a proper gucci way of doing it would be to jam a microcontroller in there and have proper sunrise/sunset sort of stuff go on.
So. Question time, is the Arcadia or the Aqua One the better choice?
//Jan