LED advice?

[Polly]

choosing aquarium LED so as to save energy should not be a reason

Why not?

I swapped all the living room lights to IKEA LEDs - the very definition of cheap, so by your reasoning, not going to get brighter light or save money.

However, I can now read at night, something I couldn't do with CFLs, I can also work effectively - I'm an artist, I need good light to work in, my work lamp is LED. In addition, I have already paid for the outlay in money saved 2 years down the line. In the first year, we saved so much on energy that powergen came and changed our practically brand new meter. They thought it was broken! Turns out it wasn't, we had simply changed from CFL lighting to LEDs. The savings have continued and our lights are still bright.

We did have to change the bulbs for smaller ones in the kitchen though - it looked as if a UFO had landed LOL

Now, I want to do the same with the aquarium, as I don't have a high light requirement for it, I think it's a workable scheme.

EnderUK,

I can see where you're coming from Thing is though, I've had this scape for 6 years, it has evolved some, but I hated the terracotta colour of the substrate even at the beginning. I just wanted to see how cat litter would perform. Turns out, it performs extremely well, if you like the colour

So the search for LED lighting, is part of a rescape. New substrate (dark/black), new plants, new lighting. I find myself with the time to do this now, in a few weeks, I'll be too busy