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New tank help

andy

andy

Member
Joined
14 Sep 2007
Messages
304
Location
Lewes, East Sussex
I've been given a tank....100cm x 40 x 40cm
I'd like to continue with my high tech planted scheme...I currently run a red sea nano
I'm looking for advice for lighting. I don't have massive funds for the new tank but was looking at two of these
I will be using CO2
Any thoughts or advice?
Thank you
 
andy said:
I've been given a tank....100cm x 40 x 40cm
I'd like to continue with my high tech planted scheme...I currently run a red sea nano
I'm looking for advice for lighting. I don't have massive funds for the new tank but was looking at two of these
I will be using CO2
Any thoughts or advice?
Thank you
Click to expand...
Light seems fine and 2 would be an option for 40 gallons.
Thing is.... the programmings pretty simplistic and not very flexible.
Seems everyone's on the dumb it down bandwagon.

Screenshot 2025-03-22 150741.png
 
It might be me, but I couldn't find details of Lumen, Lux or PAR at full intensity for this light on Amazon.

Superfish light details (these figures may be a bit out of date) model 93 (for a 3 foot tank), 35 Watts, 4680 Lumens, PAR is quoted as 269, but I don't know at what depth. Suspect it isn't the 40 or so cms that is often the top of the substrate from the light bar that many have. I personally found the Superfish light a bit harsh.

I have found Hygger and Nicrew disappointing. The former, for a 3 foot tank is only 2365 Lumens. I use the Nicrew for indoor terrestrial ferns in the winter, but I was, in all fairness able to grow crypts and Java fern in a tank with it.

I found the All Pondsolutions lights cheap, simple and effective but I don't have the manufacturer cited Lumens or PAR. But the lights for a tank up to two foot come it at 24 watts, the next size up for three foot tank is oddly only 26 watts. So hardly ideal for your purposes.

One advantage of the very cheap floodlights, on Amazon, they normally cite the CRI and Lumens. Though obviously not suitable in terms of fittings and aesthetics for all situations but the cheap lights I have, they produce excellent pearling even at 60 cms light source to substrate surface.

I've tested lots on my phone for intensity etc., but wouldn't trust the accuracy to cite publicly, but suffice it to say, I have found cheap floodlights have a better punch and often a better PAR than mid range specialist aquarium lights, I can't say anything from personal experience about the really upmarket versions. I do have a very good LED bar from Dennerle, now I think discontinued, but it wasn't cheap and is honestly, despite excellent build quality, no better than cheap floodlights for punch and pearling. I am no lighting expert just a chap who doesn't like to pay through the nose for things that don't offer much of a benefit over cheap readily available goods.
 
Connswater said:
It might be me, but I couldn't find details of Lumen, Lux or PAR at full intensity for this light on Amazon.

Superfish light details (these figures may be a bit out of date) model 93 (for a 3 foot tank), 35 Watts, 4680 Lumens, PAR is quoted as 269, but I don't know at what depth. Suspect it isn't the 40 or so cms that is often the top of the substrate from the light bar that many have. I personally found the Superfish light a bit harsh.

I have found Hygger and Nicrew disappointing. The former, for a 3 foot tank is only 2365 Lumens. I use the Nicrew for indoor terrestrial ferns in the winter, but I was, in all fairness able to grow crypts and Java fern in a tank with it.

I found the All Pondsolutions lights cheap, simple and effective but I don't have the manufacturer cited Lumens or PAR. But the lights for a tank up to two foot come it at 24 watts, the next size up for three foot tank is oddly only 26 watts. So hardly ideal for your purposes.

One advantage of the very cheap floodlights, on Amazon, they normally cite the CRI and Lumens. Though obviously not suitable in terms of fittings and aesthetics for all situations but the cheap lights I have, they produce excellent pearling even at 60 cms light source to substrate surface.

I've tested lots on my phone for intensity etc., but wouldn't trust the accuracy to cite publicly, but suffice it to say, I have found cheap floodlights have a better punch and often a better PAR than mid range specialist aquarium lights, I can't say anything from personal experience about the really upmarket versions. I do have a very good LED bar from Dennerle, now I think discontinued, but it wasn't cheap and is honestly, despite excellent build quality, no better than cheap floodlights for punch and pearling. I am no lighting expert just a chap who doesn't like to pay through the nose for things that don't offer much of a benefit over cheap readily available goods.
Click to expand...
Well " any" equipment built and sold for a specialty industry will be " premium" priced.
Household spots or floods are usually cheaper for " lumens/watt or just have superior number if watts.
Problem of course boils down to convience and even look.
Most " commercial" lighting is rarely above 80 cri or even in the preferred 5000-6500 k range.
You want superior color @ cri's above 90 and they are as expensive or moreso than a RGBW aquarium led that can fake color accuracy and or color intensity.
Now currently there are " smart" bulbs but their wattage decreases compared to a simple 100w 5000k 80cri $30 yard flood light that one has to deal with the mounting aspects

Measuring cri below like 4500k is not relevant due to using a different standard than " daylight" as a baseline.

Now granted plants really don't care about cri or k temp, just #'s of photons they get.
One minor warning...if you measure the lumens/lux of an aquarium light with many red and ir blue LEDs the measurement is under reporting true intensity.
1000 lux of 650 red is 77 ppfd.
1000 lux of cheap white LEDs is 13.4 ppfd
Point is a RGB light will score lower than a 6500k white only light but be more intense for plants. Thanks to the Lumen / lux truncated light set.
Eyeball curve lux. A royal blue led shot full of yellow/ green phosphors will score high in lux/ lumens
A red/ blue led light of equal photon output will score low...to you..and be visually quite dim.
CREEs made their livlihood on this. Horrible color (70-80 cri, opinion) but massive lumen/ watt numbers.


Screenshot_20250323-082021.png
Now that's not all bad since as seen above
plants use all the spectrum.
It's you that makes the difference.

You can always save some money going China direct of course. AliExpress has an anniversary sale. I was checking out their $110US par meters for aquariums.
Thought i'd throw my fav on paper but off the radar light brand. Along w/ Week aqua..
Screenshot_20250323-083736.png
90w of RGBW LEDs. Cheap? No not really but my first yardstick is $/watt
Anything under $3US/real watt ( Chinese can play games here) is fair game so to speak.
I prefer watts over lumens. Will accept lux a bit more since there are rough calculators out there. Every spectrum is different

Convert Lux to PPFD - Online Calculator | Waveform Lighting

Online calculator to convert illuminance (lux) to PPFD (micromoles per second per meter squared).
www.waveformlighting.com www.waveformlighting.com
 
Very many thanks for that. It is all very technical and I concede I am operating on the edges of what I think I understand.

I do, as I said, mess about with my phone and test, but I don't claim any great accuracy with my phone. But obviously, consistent measures and believable measurements across different light sources yields results which form a pattern and seem to suggest my broad judgements are not far from the mark on cost and effectiveness. I also personally, don't like the aesthetics of the purple tinted aquarium plant lights, I prefer white light, I am happy with a warmer light but seem to get better overall performance with lighting which is cooler.

I 'eyeball' pearling a lot, perhaps obsessively, with good CO2 levels (20+ ppm), strong wattage 50+ and a CRI >80 from my cheap floodlights. If I get fierce plant tip pearling after around an hour and gentle pearling after a few hours on leaves close to the substrate, I am generally content.

My main tank, the mounted cheap floodlights are 20 inches from the substrate. The 2HourAquarist suggests 50 umols for most green carpeting type plants at the substrate. With my cheap floodlights I certainly easily hit that figure according to my phone, with two well known brands at a distance of 20 inches (cheaper and cheap end, but not the very cheap end of the aquarium marketed LED bars) I can only measure 20 with the cheaper and 14 with the cheap. The 2HourAuarist recommends 20-30 for most green plants, and I find, if the cheaper aquarium lights are mounted as designed, close to the surface I can certainly measure 30 PAR at the substrate and get gentle pearling, but not the higher levels of PAR desired for red plants.

But of course, wattage becomes interesting, and I like your suggestion of matching $ with Wattage. The energy used by cheap LED floodlights is definitely higher. But, with the higher wattage, I hit PAR targets at the substrate easily. I also like the convenience of mounted floodlights rather than LED bars straddling the tank, the aesthetics don't matter for me, the lights are hidden on my main tank. £/$ per Watt is definitely interesting. In the UK cheaper aquarium lights range from around a £1+ a Watt to £2/£3 per Watt, but Wattage is quite limited. Cheap floodlights are perhaps a £ for 5 watts but high wattage is available, PAR at 20-24 inches can be easily achieved. I have not used or tested the 'top of the range' modern dedicated aquarium lights, the cost is beyond my bank balance.

Thanks again for your detailed and informative response.
 
Connswater said:
Very many thanks for that. It is all very technical and I concede I am operating on the edges of what I think I understand.

I do, as I said, mess about with my phone and test, but I don't claim any great accuracy with my phone. But obviously, consistent measures and believable measurements across different light sources yields results which form a pattern and seem to suggest my broad judgements are not far from the mark on cost and effectiveness. I also personally, don't like the aesthetics of the purple tinted aquarium plant lights, I prefer white light, I am happy with a warmer light but seem to get better overall performance with lighting which is cooler.

I 'eyeball' pearling a lot, perhaps obsessively, with good CO2 levels (20+ ppm), strong wattage 50+ and a CRI >80 from my cheap floodlights. If I get fierce plant tip pearling after around an hour and gentle pearling after a few hours on leaves close to the substrate, I am generally content.

My main tank, the mounted cheap floodlights are 20 inches from the substrate. The 2HourAquarist suggests 50 umols for most green carpeting type plants at the substrate. With my cheap floodlights I certainly easily hit that figure according to my phone, with two well known brands at a distance of 20 inches (cheaper and cheap end, but not the very cheap end of the aquarium marketed LED bars) I can only measure 20 with the cheaper and 14 with the cheap. The 2HourAuarist recommends 20-30 for most green plants, and I find, if the cheaper aquarium lights are mounted as designed, close to the surface I can certainly measure 30 PAR at the substrate and get gentle pearling, but not the higher levels of PAR desired for red plants.

But of course, wattage becomes interesting, and I like your suggestion of matching $ with Wattage. The energy used by cheap LED floodlights is definitely higher. But, with the higher wattage, I hit PAR targets at the substrate easily. I also like the convenience of mounted floodlights rather than LED bars straddling the tank, the aesthetics don't matter for me, the lights are hidden on my main tank. £/$ per Watt is definitely interesting. In the UK cheaper aquarium lights range from around a £1+ a Watt to £2/£3 per Watt, but Wattage is quite limited. Cheap floodlights are perhaps a £ for 5 watts but high wattage is available, PAR at 20-24 inches can be easily achieved. I have not used or tested the 'top of the range' modern dedicated aquarium lights, the cost is beyond my bank balance.

Thanks again for your detailed and informative response.
Click to expand...
I did a funny little impromptu study of watts vs par.
Using a bunch of on line numbers I came up with a crude estimate of par = watts at 18"
Now the qualifiers were 120 degree lenses and 1 or less watts per led.
Beamsworks (budget light but good power) was slightly under the 1:1 ratio.

Worked out fairly well considering a limited data set and except for a few outliers like twinstar which exceeded the 1par 1 watt number by like 50%. 1.5par/watt @18"

Leds are still under going improvements as we speak and also many shifted to RGB heavy arrays.
Not sure it has much value today..but it was interesting. Lets just call it a wee bit better than blind faith..🙂

FUN with a flood light. See amazon link below 9" x 4.5" guesstimate light surface, 10000 lumens, 20 p a watt (You do your money)
Like 5w for a pound.
120 degrees
Say you want to light a 40b
36" x 18"
Calculated height would be approx. 7.8" would cover a 36" x 31.5" (already a lot of spill bit will ignore it for a moment)
7.88sq ft 13660Lux
13660 LUX for low cri 6500k led is 179 par at the surface of the water.
Now you can guess the amount of loss due to your tank surface area is only 4.5 sq ft not 7.88 sq ft.
3.38 sq feet falls outside your tank.

Still going to ignore it.
If you have par of 179 at the surface after traveling 7.8" and now the light is no longer free to spread (constrained by glass bonce and refraction) the light
no longer adheres to the inverse square rule ( 2x distance 1/4 power).
It behaves a bit more linear so at 15.6" your par is 1/2 179 89.5
...89.5 ppfd @ 15.6"

Soo now I conclude the light hits way over 50 par at the substrate of a 40 b with the light 7.8" (20cm) off the water line at a minumum.


All the necessary "tools" for the above..

LED Lighting Beam Angle Calculator

A simple calculator that determines spot size by a light's beam angle
store.marinebeam.com store.marinebeam.com

Lumens to lux (lx) conversion calculator

Lumens (lm) to lux (lx) conversion calculator and how to calculate.
www.rapidtables.com www.rapidtables.com

Convert Lux to PPFD - Online Calculator | Waveform Lighting

Online calculator to convert illuminance (lux) to PPFD (micromoles per second per meter squared).
www.waveformlighting.com www.waveformlighting.com

Use 10cm (approx 4" ) height off the water line to the front face of the light to have the front/back dimension with less waste, at the cost of sacrificing full surface coverage left right. 22.5"
After doing the math one gets 250par at 8" approx 125 par at 16"...All the light (majority) is now in the tank and not spilling off the front and back. But now surface areas are "dark" on the extreme left and right.
 
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