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Does new lighting have to be expensive?

Rahms

Rahms

Member
Joined
19 Oct 2013
Messages
310
Good evening,

The T8 unit in my Juwel hood died a while ago, so I'm just looking for a replacement. I like the idea of getting a new rim-mounted unit instead of fitting something to the old hood, but am open to any suggestions. There are a million options and I'm getting a bit bogged down. 60x30cm tank. 54 litres I think.

What is the difference between a pricey T5HO 2 tube system and, say, this one:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/T5-Aquari...557?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item20f57dd395

I'd prefer LEDs really but the outlay (and lack of info for cheap units) seems prohibitive.

Thanks

also I have a FE CO2 system but never used it with the lowly T8, so the new light being brighter should be OK
 
you should check out allpondsolutions t5ho reasonably prices, I got 4 bulb 120cm for £110 at christmas
 
greenmac75 said:
you should check out allpondsolutions t5ho reasonably prices, I got 4 bulb 120cm for £110 at christmas
Click to expand...

looks nice but still its £90 for a 60cm. Just seems so pricey for what it is, wondering what I'm missing.

least its not £300 of LEDs lol

cheers
 
I had the wavepoint led had to send back twice wouldnt recommend and the arcadia stretch, which was a nice light but one was just not enough
 
Rahms said:
also I have a FE CO2 system but never used it with the lowly T8,
Click to expand...
I ran for 2 years with CO2 and T8 tubes, in fact light level still makes tank high tech. Plants grow and pearl and very easy to keep algae free. Now moved to T5's plant growth much faster, but then also so so easy to take your eye off he ball and let algae in.....
 
I have got also a 60ish liters tank high tech and I bought the cheapest 2x24w T5HO (Odyssea) which works (I guess) as well as any other light fixture. My suggestion would be to ensure that you can hang it over the tank and regulate the distance to it, depending on your skills and layout it can be too much to have it very close to the tank.

I am constantly looking on the websites and shops for LED lights, and I recognize I really love some of them but I cannot understand the prices. IMO paying 250 € for a light fixture is difficult to justify when my current light costed 70 €... It does the same job and the energy saving is pointless in the sense that you can run your lights during a lot of time (actually paying 180€ in electricity bills) to just begin saving energy.
In my case, I will wait for this technology to settle down or I would buy a reliable second hand one.

Jordi
 
parotet said:
I really love some of them but I cannot understand the prices
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That is because genuine proper quality LED's from the like of Cree and Osram and NOT Chinese Ebay copies, cost serious money. For instance single 5W LED cost £10 in quantity and going up to £20 each @ 10Watts. You will also need reliable drive electronics and suitable heatsinking for the LED's so I can easily see why you will not get a proper LED unit from the big manufacturers for less the £100.

These are proper efficient LED's not 5050 jobbies in strips/tubes that generally are not much brighter than T8 tubes.

Here you go genuine Cree 10W LED @ £18....
http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/visible-leds/6675420/
 
ian_m said:
That is because genuine proper quality LED's from the like of Cree and Osram and NOT Chinese Ebay copies, cost serious money. For instance single 5W LED cost £10 in quantity and going up to £20 each @ 10Watts. You will also need reliable drive electronics and suitable heatsinking for the LED's so I can easily see why you will not get a proper LED unit from the big manufacturers for less the £100.
Click to expand...
Totally agree, actually I would not recommend any light fixture under this price... there are plenty of failures reported with cheap LED fixtures.


ian_m said:
You will also need reliable drive electronics and suitable heatsinking for the LED's
Click to expand...
Additionally if you want to be it dimmable (which is something very interesting), good electronics will make the light fixture more expensive and then they will easily reach 300 or much more.

Good and old tubes are for the moment fine for me, as I keep only small tanks (2 tanks that hardly make together 100 liters!) and I learnt here there is no need to buy expensive/special tubes or change them every year has it is stated everywhere in the internet.

Jordi
 
Rahms said:
Good evening,
The T8 unit in my Juwel hood died a while ago, so I'm just looking for a replacement. I like the idea of getting a new rim-mounted unit instead of fitting something to the old hood, but am open to any suggestions. There are a million options and I'm getting a bit bogged down. 60x30cm tank. 54 litres I think.
What is the difference between a pricey T5HO 2 tube system and, say, this one:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/T5-Aquari...557?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item20f57dd395
I'd prefer LEDs really but the outlay (and lack of info for cheap units) seems prohibitive.
Thanks
also I have a FE CO2 system but never used it with the lowly T8, so the new light being brighter should be OK
Click to expand...

I dont think there is gonna be anything wrong with the ebay fixture. Its not really that cheap anyway IMO. I would buy it if I nedded it.
 
ian_m said:
genuine proper quality LED's from the like of Cree and Osram and NOT Chinese Ebay copies, cost serious money
Click to expand...
I have no problems with that, sadly not all manufacturers give out correct reliable truthfull info on their products.
For instance does Ikea use any high quality LED's in any fixture?
 
Edvet said:
For instance does Ikea use any high quality LED's in any fixture?
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Not convinced. A friends Ikea LED strip he bought ages ago to go in a kitchen cabinets has got some yellowing LED's and not all are the same brightness now. Nice idea connect to kitchen lights and light up insides of the cupboards...if it lasted.

Yet he has a £15 LED desk lamp on during office hours, and that is years old and showing now signs of failing....so luck of the draw in the end.
 
ian_m said:
A friends Ikea LED strip he bought ages ago to go in a kitchen cabinets has got some yellowing LED's and not all are the same brightness now. Nice idea connect to kitchen lights and light up insides of the cupboards...if it lasted.
Click to expand...
A friend of mine has been using two of them for a year over a long and narrow tank (100x27x27 cm) and he is growing successfully Cryptocorine, Limnophila sessiliflora, Rotala and Ludwigia. It grows veeeeery slowly but the tanks looks very nice with a large shoal of silvertip tetras... Consumption is just ridiculous but it looks very yellow IMO. You would need at least 4 of them to have more growth but then it would be cheaper to use classic T8s or a T5 fixture.

Jordi
 
LEDLife_zps598be0aa.png
Just noticed this in the small print for some "cheaper" waterproof high output (still only 1/3 of a T5 HO @ 3500lm/m) LED strips @ £20 for 2.5meters. Quoted lifetime for 2-4hours per day for 5 years...3600 hours then, not good.

Mind you do some water proof 2000 lumens/meter @ £20/meter that are rated 24/7.
 
I have experimented with various alternative LED lights. Firstly LED strips glued inside the lid. Not very bright and over a relatively short time they start to fail, probably not totally waterproof.
I have replaced them with these as I have no headroom and wanted something thin. http://www.fishpetsreptiles.co.uk/products/detail.php?prodcat=&prodtype=&prodid=3145. They come as a strip in the aluminium heat dissipator but without the cover. I simply used aquarium silicone to attach a plastic front but it may be possible to get the whole light unit. The only issue I encountered is that the wires are very thin and readily come adrift. Simply a matter of resoldering though. They are bright but I am using them over 20cm deep tanks so may not be an issue for you. In fact I have dimmed them using this https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=l...2Fmini-led-dimmer-with-3-buttons.html;800;800. Be aware that you need to wire the LED the right way round.

Finally my new tanks are lit by these http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Aquarium-...ED-Light-White-Blue-White-Color-/261381185040. Very good light even blue too if you want it. Only issue I have is that the supports tend to fall off the tank edges but I think this can be worked around.

These all appear good value to me and plants are growing under all of them for me.
 
I'm currently retrofitting an old hood for some new LEDs. I wasn't really interested in anything other than genuine Cree XM-L2, so spent a little time digging around for ideas and components to make sure I was getting the best value:-

20volt/90Watt laptop power supply - £2 (ebay second hand)
10 * Cree XM-L2 cool white LEDs on stars - £35 (ebay - search for 'ledbloke')
10 * LED star heat sinks - £27 (Farnell - http://uk.farnell.com/ohmite/sa-led-113e/heatsink-led-12-7mm-black/dp/2097677?CMP=i-bf9f-00001000)
2 * LDD-1000H LED drivers and board - £20 (from Coralux in USA)
Thermal paste/wires/screws - £10

So £100 or so gives you the guts of a well spec'd LED system with what are notionally the most efficient LEDs available atm. I'm setting it up to run the led's at 1000ma which should generate something in the region of 4100-4600 lumens for about 30watts of power.

I don't currently need anything else for the retrofit and I'll dim them via my raspberry pi.

I'm quite sure this is serious overkill for a 60*30 tank though. You could probably reduce the number of LEDs and maybe lower the cost even further with a couple of larger, individual heatsinks (such as http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/heatsinks/1898628/) for a slightly different approach.

The main attraction (other than cost!) for me, however, is the flexibility. At some point I'll transfer the led's to a home grown luminaire over a new, larger tank. All of the components are re-useable - I may need to add some additional drivers, or swap in a different power supply, or change the drivers and run them at a different current but the bulk of that £100 won't be wasted. Plenty of options if you're happy playing with electrickery and do a little research on how to set them up (pretty straightforward these days).

No doubt someone will be along shortly to burst my bubble 🙂 - but so far the build is working out pretty well.

Cheers, Mark
 
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