# Whats the best light for my (coming soon) tank?



## Cam-t1 (Dec 15, 2013)

Hey all, following on from this thread - http://goo.gl/2klydE

I'm setting up a new tank as seen above, so sorted out all of the substrate questions, but I thought earlier on I may aswell get a new light.. Only issue is I really don't know anything about lights D:

Tank is 122 x 45 x 45cm
Will have a CO2 System
Will be dosed with Liquid Ferts
Plant list will be high stemmed plants, few anubias and HC.

Current light is an:


AquaOne Coral Pro T5 (2x Red Bulbs, 2x White bulbs (all 54w each)).

Looking at a 


Maxspect Glaive 70w Freshwater LED Lighting System
*Specs:*


Built-in basic controller
Comes with infrared remote control
Cycle and demo modes
Maxspect licenced 4 core Multi-chip LED chip (7w each core)
 *Basic Controller and Infrared Remote Control:*


Turn on/off fixture
Adjusting intensity of 4 channels of LED
Cycle / Demo mode
 *G4-F (Freshwater) Channels:*


*White Channel*
6000K Warm White Cree EZ1000
*Blue Channel*
450nm Blue
*Green Channel*
520nm Green
*Red Channel*
620nm Deep Red
The only issue I noticed was that in the description it says 


> The Glaive LED system was designed for freshwater planted aquariums with *low light* requirements.


Im also under the impression you're able to change how intense the light output it (for different plants) because of the "Adjusting intensity of 4 channels of LED" - but again not sureI looked online, dunno if this is a newer product on the market but I literally couldn't find a review on this product..

Cheers!

*EDIT:* Further looking into it, this product only came out a few months ago, hence there being no reviews..


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## mattinmd (Aug 16, 2014)

I've seen that same quote on the web, worded differently:



> The Maxspect Glaive LED system was designed for freshwater planted aquariums and reef aquariums with low light requirements.


There's some ambiguity if the "low light" belongs on both, or just the reef end of that, and it looks like someone edited the "and reef" part out without thinking about it.

Regardless, at 70w of LED, I don't immediately think "low light only", although I'm not sure how close it is going to come to your current 208w of T5HO.

I also don't tend to think of 620nm as "deep red", as this is around the color of common red LED's you see as power lights everywhere. A few folks call it "orange red". Not that this is a bad color, I'd just not call it "deep" since it is so close to the orange spectrum.


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## Cam-t1 (Dec 15, 2013)

mattinmd said:


> I've seen that same quote on the web, worded differently:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


yeah, it looks like someones made an error aye.
Well I was only running two of the bulbs (108w) and that is on a 60cm high tank, being said different plants/circumstances.

I'll probably contact the company today to find out this whole 'low light' thing - I really just want a good quality LED - that will also hit the bottom of the new tank without an issue.


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## ced281 (Jul 6, 2012)

I would consider 70W of LED a low light setup for your tank dimensions. As a VERY ROUGH rule of thumb:

1W per gallon = low light
1-2W per gallon = med light (Can also be 1-1.5W)
2+ W per gallon = high

Your tank will be roughly in the 60gal range. I've kept a tank similar to those dimensions with both a 54Wx4 T5HO fixture and a 64x3W LED fixture and growth was better with the T5HO. (This is all anecdotal though, there's probably some human variables involved like how much maintenance I put in etc.)

How much is that fixture coming out to? I wouldn't even consider it if it's more than $120 USD. You'd be better off spending 2x the amount to get a much higher wattage light system where you can turn off half of the lights (or dim all of them 1/2 way). This way, if you decide to upgrade to a high light tank setup, you can just turn all your lights on.

Bump: Btw, being able to change the intensity for this most likely means max intensity = the equivalent of 70W full blast. I'm not using technically correct terms, but that should make more sense than I used the more technical terms.

Basically, when you "turn down your knob" it will lower the intensity of light below what you would expect from 70W of equivalent lighting at full intensity. So basically you can adjust the light to ~70W or less depending on your tank needs.

Also, I forgot to mention -- your lighting needs depend highly on your plant selection, planned CO2 injection, and fertilization schedule (not just type) in order of priority.


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## jeffkrol (Jun 5, 2013)

Cam-t1 said:


> *G4-F (Freshwater) Channels:*
> 
> 
> *White Channel*
> ...












@30cm.....

Even @ 45cm this NOT low light...roughly 40-60PAR


620nm is NOT deep red.. btw.. just red..


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## Cam-t1 (Dec 15, 2013)

ced281 said:


> I would consider 70W of LED a low light setup for your tank dimensions. As a VERY ROUGH rule of thumb:
> 
> 1W per gallon = low light
> 1-2W per gallon = med light (Can also be 1-1.5W)
> ...


Hmm, I mean I could save myself a few hundred and go with the T5 I just love the look the LED lights give the tank, but from what you're saying, yeah the glaive wouldn't be near enough. 


ced281 said:


> How much is that fixture coming out to? I wouldn't even consider it if it's more than $120 USD. You'd be better off spending 2x the amount to get a much higher wattage light system where you can turn off half of the lights (or dim all of them 1/2 way). This way, if you decide to upgrade to a high light tank setup, you can just turn all your lights on.


lol, it retails at about $400-500 AUD..
Well that's the thing with my current T5 setup - There's two switches so I could have only two T5 bulbs on if needed, or amp it to all four.



ced281 said:


> Also, I forgot to mention -- your lighting needs depend highly on your plant selection, planned CO2 injection, and fertilization schedule (not just type) in order of priority.


So what light intensity do you recommend? Do you think i'd need atleast 200w LED to keep those plant selections? As said above i'd like to go with LED because of the look (also because of the look of the unit (my T5 unit is bulky as)), i'm trying to limit my options to the maxspect range http://www.maxspect.com/ as I can get their lights cheaper.

*EDIT:* Sorry Jeff, just saw your post, I'll be honest I don't understand it lol, care to explain?


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## ced281 (Jul 6, 2012)

PAR is a more "pure" way of measuring the "quality" of a light. The problem is most people can't measure it well. It's the correct apples-to-apples comparison of light quality e.g. 1W of T5HO is not equivalent to 1W of LED, but 1 PAR of lighting from a T5HO is more similar to 1 PAR of LED.

Even though the PAR is 40-60 I'd still say it isn't enough light for for high light need plants esp. any plants that turn red. But again, I don't have a PAR meter so I can't accurately say what my PAR is for my LED fixtures.

Just tell us what plants you want to put in and we can tell you what probably will and won't work.

Bump:


Cam-t1 said:


> Hmm, I mean I could save myself a few hundred and go with the T5 I just love the look the LED lights give the tank, but from what you're saying, yeah the glaive wouldn't be near enough.
> 
> lol, it retails at about $400-500 AUD..
> Well that's the thing with my current T5 setup - There's two switches so I could have only two T5 bulbs on if needed, or amp it to all four.
> ...


The Green Element EVO Quad 48"-52" LED Aquarium Light Fixture is what I use on my 75gal (48"L , 21"H, 18"W). I consider it to be one of my "medium" to "high" light tanks based on how my rotala butterfly and rotala rotundifolia grow in it (their foliage doesn't turn red until they reach about ~12" from the light). I have tanks with even more light on them, so I might just have a skewed perception of light intensity. This light IMO was inferior in pure plant growth capability to the 48x4 T5HO I was using a few years back. But again, I don't have a PAR meter so I can't give you the objective measurements. So take my opinion with a grain of salt.


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## jeffkrol (Jun 5, 2013)

ced281 said:


> PAR is a more "pure" way of measuring the "quality" of a light. The problem is most people can't measure it well. It's the correct apples-to-apples comparison of light quality e.g. 1W of T5HO is not equivalent to 1W of LED, but 1 PAR of lighting from a T5HO is more similar to 1 PAR of LED.
> 
> Even though the PAR is 40-60 I'd still say it isn't enough light for for high light need plants esp. any plants that turn red. But again, I don't have a PAR meter so I can't accurately say what my PAR is for my LED fixtures.
> 
> Just tell us what plants you want to put in and we can tell you what probably will and won't work.


PAR of 40 at the substrate level can grow almost anything..
1/2 to 1/3W LED's is arguably equal to 1W T5/8... 

http://www.apsa.co.za/xenforo/threads/lighting-basics-for-people-new-to-the-aquascaping-hobby.11329/


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## ced281 (Jul 6, 2012)

And, honestly, save the money you were going to spend on substrate additives and reallocate it to better hardware (either better CO2 or better lighting).

Bump: The link in Jeff's article makes a good point about CO2 being more important than light, so keep that in mind! You definitely can photoburn plants with too much light (and also cause algae problems), which is why I'd recommend a higher watt LED fixture where you can dim or at least modulate the amount of light output.


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## jeffkrol (Jun 5, 2013)

Cam-t1 said:


> *EDIT:* Sorry Jeff, just saw your post, I'll be honest I don't understand it lol, care to explain?


The Maxspect Glaive is enough light for your tank.. but it still has some tweaking they should have done.. Like substituting cyan for the green and using both true "deep red" (660nm) and royal blue..
Shows a mild misunderstanding of fw planted needs..


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## ced281 (Jul 6, 2012)

The "deep red" and the royal blue are probably for reef setups. (Which would also explain why the light costs so much, since the market for reef lights is expensive).



jeffkrol said:


> The Maxspect Glaive is enough light for your tank.. but it still has some tweaking they should have done.. Like substituting cyan for the green and using both true "deep red" (660nm) and royal blue..
> Shows a mild misunderstanding of fw planted needs..


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## Cam-t1 (Dec 15, 2013)

Cheers for the link, Jeff - i just got home but i'll have a read of it later tonight or tomorrow morning.

Just thought I would put this here just for info - basic specs Freshwater vs. Marine, so seems they did try to optimise it for freshwater, well partly.











ced281 said:


> Just tell us what plants you want to put in and we can tell you what probably will and won't work.


So I had a quick look through my LFS' plant supplier (Pisces Enterprises), this is what I could find that I would like (not sure if they're *all* true aquatic plants, because I know some that the supplier stock aren't):



Dwarf Blyxa
Hairgrass
HC
Lilaeopsis
Bolbitus
Wisteria
Amazon Swords
Mayaca
That would be all I can think of at the moment 

*EDIT:*I was trying to look at other maxspect lights, and found the Maxspect R420R M 16,000K LED 160w however looking into the specs a bit more, they say its for freshwater aswell but the site shows the R420R has a much higher blue colours for reefs obviously.

I didn't get around to it today, but hopefully tomorrow I will call the company, see what they say about the whole 'low light' that it states on the page, see if they can recommend another maxspect light that would be much more suited for my tank, unless you guys think the glaive will be fine, or can suggest an LED light unit that will be perfect for up to $300-330 at the most.

Ah so confused! lol


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Go by the PAR charts that jeff posted if those match the fixture.

Please do not go by wattage - it is not at all indicative of the amount of light your plants will use from the LEDs. The watts per gallon rule is not what you should go by (especially for LED).

http://food4fish.co.uk/lighting/product.php?n=glaive&i=5

IMO you're looking at medium lighting at best @ substrate level near the edges. That fixture is also going to have poor spread because it is just a thin strip light (unless the beam angle is very wide). IMO you would need 2 to get good spread and solid lighting throughout the tank @ substrate level. At like $500 you could probably do better. $500 can probably get you the nicest T5HO fixtures out there.

If you're willing to spend the $$$ I would get a few BMLs and a dimmer knowing that you will have lights that are engineered for plant growth / can produce a ton of PAR.

Right now a lot of the more expensive reef manufacturers are whipping out freshwater fixtures because the market is there. These fixtures are all expensive and may seem like they are amazing but research can show that a lot of them are not the best options for planted tanks. LEDs are awesome but very few companies are offering great fixtures specifically for planted tanks. I might be wrong about the maxspect but I'm not seeing enough evidence to confirm it will be a great plant fixture (especially for the price)

Also when you call maxspect they will probably just tell you that their light will do whatever you need it to do. They want to sell you the fixture lol


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## Cam-t1 (Dec 15, 2013)

klibs said:


> If you're willing to spend the $$$ I would get a few BMLs and a dimmer knowing that you will have lights that are engineered for plant growth / can produce a ton of PAR.


BML = Build my LED? If so, couldn't find anyone in AUS that does it D:



klibs said:


> Also when you call maxspect they will probably just tell you that their light will do whatever you need it to do. They want to sell you the fixture lol


Lol yeah I figured that, so decided not to call them haha
Cheers for your help, klibs!




klibs said:


> IMO you're looking at medium lighting at best @ substrate level near the edges. That fixture is also going to have poor spread because it is just a thin strip light (unless the beam angle is very wide). IMO you would need 2 to get good spread and solid lighting throughout the tank @ substrate level. At like $500 you could probably do better. $500 can probably get you the nicest T5HO fixtures out there.


Yeah well if I'm looking at medium at best I wont go with it, I want something that can be adjustable or just high lighting - as I said i'm not sure with the plants I want, what lighting will suit them all (if something will suit them all lol), I know HC need strong light at substrate don't they?

I found some other ones, not a crazy priced brand like maxspect - these guys aren't "specialist" in aquarium lights or anything though.

They units are 49w each, and they say its equivalent to 3x 54w T5 globes.
Unfortunately, can't find anything on PAR with the products.
I do believe there is two switches on this so you can just have the White on or Red/Blue/Green, or both.

Thoughts?


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## mattcham (Mar 7, 2014)

mattinmd said:


> Regardless, at 70w of LED, I don't immediately think "low light only", although I'm not sure how close it is going to come to your current 208w of T5HO.


His 208w of T5HO has probably ~3x more PAR than that 70w LED. Not much electricity savings per PAR going from T5HO to LED.


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## mattinmd (Aug 16, 2014)

mattcham said:


> His 208w of T5HO has probably ~3x more PAR than that 70w LED. Not much electricity savings per PAR going from T5HO to LED.




Edit: nevermind. That particular 70w led is lame. 

Original:
That's a rather funny claim.



http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=184368



Compare these two 48" fixtures at 20" depth, extracting numbers from Hoppy's charts



Catalina 2-bulb T5HO - 58 PAR/PPFD 108 watts, 0.53 PAR/watt

Finnex Ray2 48" - 68 PAR/PPFD 39 watts, 1.74 PAR/watt



You can also take the par champ t5ho by aquaticlife to task:

AquaticLife 4-bulb T5HO - 115 PAR/PPFD, 208 watts, 0.55 PAR/watt





Higher PAR, but still much lower efficiency than the LEDs. And that's one of the most efficient T5HO fixtures on the market. It puts out less than 1/3rd the PAR/watt of the finnex.



Perhaps the claim may hold true for very low efficiency LED lights compared to very high end T5HO, but not for fixtures of the same quality tier.


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## Cam-t1 (Dec 15, 2013)

Soo what light should I go for?xD


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## skanderson (Jul 25, 2010)

don't know anything about manufactured led units but my rule of thumb for lighting with decent led emitters is 1 watt per gallon. I will be changing the lights over my sump and frag tank this weekend from t5 to led. both will be going from 108 watts of t5 to 60 watts of led and im sure I will have to dim the leds by at least a third to keep the par numbers similar. you can complain all you want about the color of the led lights or disco effect from them, which is a result of poor emitter selection or design but they are much more efficient.


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## jeffkrol (Jun 5, 2013)

mattcham said:


> His 208w of T5HO has probably ~3x more PAR than that 70w LED. Not much electricity savings per PAR going from T5HO to LED.


First that isn't even close to accurate..A well designed LED w/ 70W of real output (which is NOT common BTW) has as much PAR as a "good" T5HO of 140W.
In other words LED's are more efficient to the tune of 1W LED = 2-3W of T5/8

The "savings" is a bit arguable.. but there is some.... All depends on the quality of the LED's like the quality of the ballasts..which also influence "savings"...

Bump:


skanderson said:


> don't know anything about manufactured led units but my rule of thumb for lighting with decent led emitters is 1 watt per gallon. I will be changing the lights over my sump and frag tank this weekend from t5 to led. both will be going from 108 watts of t5 to 60 watts of led and I'm sure I will have to dim the leds by at least a third to keep the par numbers similar. you can complain all you want about the color of the led lights or disco effect from them, which is a result of poor emitter selection or design but they are much more efficient.


Yep......



> LED lights behave differently to those of tubes as they are, essentially, point sources. LEDs come with built in lenses that create a beam arc of 60°. At this beam arc their light follows the inverse square law perfectly until they enter the water column. At an angle of 60° 82% of the light will enter the water but no light is lost due to poor reflector efficiency. As such 2.3 times more light will actually enter the water column compared to a tube lamp without reflector. For tubes with a reflector, LEDs are 1.4x more efficient at getting light into an aquarium. For LEDs you could take the W/m2 estimate from Figure 3 and divide by 1.4. So, for the same 0.9 x 0.32 x 0.38 cm tank, you would only need 28 W. There is still some uncertainty with respect to this estimate. While behaving as point sources of light, most LED lights come as arrays or a sequence of LEDs on a strip. Because PPFD (and Lux) are relative measures these strips can amplify the PPFD, as illustrated in Figure 4, and yield much higher PPFD that what can be predicted by simply dividing the PAR/W output by the area the light will cover.


http://www.apsa.co.za/xenforo/threads/lighting-basics-for-people-new-to-the-aquascaping-hobby.11329/



> . LED strips are 2.6 times more efficient at getting light into the aquarium than T8 and T5 tubes. Proper LED arrays, running at lower currents produce 1.5 times as much PAR/W as LED strips and are consequently more efficient and could, therefore, be 3.9 times better than tubes are at lighting aquariums.
> 
> The avid Do-it-yourselfer preoccupied with efficiency would be better served buying 1 W LED chips and building their own array rather than buying LED strips. These LEDS are far more efficient with respect to energy consumption as well as PAR/W ratio. It would be safe to estimate the W/m2 from Figure 3 and divide that estimate by 3.9. (So 39 W would become 10 W.)


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## Cam-t1 (Dec 15, 2013)

Spoke to a rep of Aqua One today (who I know quite well) she assured me one should be fine, worst comes to worst its not enough, I'll just grab another one. They're pretty cheap for me at about $120 each.


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## Kavak (Oct 12, 2014)

Hi all.im new and i dont know y i cant send new thread.
I have 20 litre plant.with alternanthera(red)/hydrocotyle/christmass moss/and small part hemiantus.it is 37 cm lenght/24 cm W/28cm hight.i use iron seachem/multi bright well/pps pro/and diy co2 and diffuse by venturi of canister filter.what is best light for me?kelvin?color?lens?lumen?which brand?....
Many tnx


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## Kavak (Oct 12, 2014)

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/p...6850&title=tmp_20140818_2204571134858535c.jpg
Image of my tank


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## Cam-t1 (Dec 15, 2013)

I am set on LED, I really don't want to go T5 because of the thickness of the unit, my cabinet for my tank is made out real timber so is quite heavy looking, thus wanting a thin light unit because if I keep a thicker T5 unit ontop of my aquarium it'll all look too bulky and not pleasent.

I spoke to the aqua one rep yesterday, know her quite well. She thinks one should be enough, if it's not I can always get a second, and I'm sure two of these lights would HAVE to be enough light for HC? (Being the most light hungry plant in my list if I'm correct?)

Ahh there's too many options! Someone needs to tell me what light is the best.


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## Cam-t1 (Dec 15, 2013)

So I spoke to the company (Kongs) regarding the PAR with the PlantGlo LED. The company had only done PAR comparison readings, which equated to 3x54w T5's at 30cm from the light to substrate level.

He done a few PAR tests for me, results:


10cm - 210
20cm - 112
30cm - 60
40cm - 46
50cm - 30

He also sent me a few photos of some crypts in a nano tank 

















That is with a PlantGlow over a period of about 7 weeks, 40cm from light to substrate, plants are various crypts.

So my tank is 51cm high, with about 5cm substrate minimum at the front of the tank with HC, so thats about ~46cm from light to top of substrate, how do you think the plants will go? Or should I have two of the light units?


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## sushant (Mar 3, 2007)

Going with Rapidled's calculation Number of 3w leds required at 18 inch height= tanks footprint in square inches/22, for your tank size this would roughly be equal to 120W. Also photosysthesis majorly takes place at wavelength 660nm and 445 nm so go with a fixture which has a good mix of red, blue and white( green has a negligible effect on photosynthesis and merely used as color popper)


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## sdav834 (Aug 14, 2012)

Go with BML, they are the plant light people. They also have another department that deals with commercial horticultural lights. Their prices are comparable and you can pick different lenses depending depth of your tank. You won't the regret. Check out their website www.buymyled.com


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

+1 for BML

Without reading the whole thread...
If you go LED then IMO you are wasting your money if you do not get something that can be dimmed. Changing the spectrum is also a plus.

I have 2x BML Dutch XB on my 75 gallon and they are awesome. With the Apex controller I can dim them right from my computer.

IMO spending the money on a long-term solution will save money in the long run. I used to skimp on aquarium hardware and I ALWAYS end up buying the high-end stuff eventually.


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## Cam-t1 (Dec 15, 2013)

Ended up getting 2x ecotech marine radion freshwater, and can I say they are reallllly worth the price, they're awesome.


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