Will LED's save MTS

I see MASA has been going wild with people moving to LED's .. I need to replace some tubes - in things like the Boyu 550 and for the price of the PL's I can do a very nice LED DIY.

The idea, using some 5050 strips maybe a mix of the Elite white @ 5500-6500K, 300 Lumen/m, 4.8 W/m mixed with Aquarium White 14000K, 280 Lumen.m and 4.8w/m or the Eco white with the 3528 chip 6000-7000k, only 230 lumen/m, 2.4W/m ...


Actually the eco white is more cost affective R89 p/m vs the Elite white R189/m almost getting 100 more lumen for the same price ... hmmm

Local website on led-lights seem to be a good deal - anybody buy from them yet have a better price site?

Yes this is for planted tanks ...

Later Ferdie

 

LED's are the thing of the future.... my only concern with the locally available ones are their relatively short lifespan(as in producing the correcr lumens and colour temp over time) - something like 5 000 to 10 000 hours....

Good quality,purpose built LED's,specifically made for aquaria last a minimum of 50 000 hours +....

 

I bought the waterproof brilliant blue 5050 for night lights from a place in the cape. They claim a 5% lumen loss over lifetime. Plus they claim +50K hours life. Lumens claimed was 80

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Interesting, after seeking some advise from a well respected breeder, the option for me was to go with tubes and not LED as the size of my tank and LED would not be compatible as yet... Algae growth was sighted as a known problem with LED - am still keen on LED although I am getting new tube-fittings installed at the moment...

 

@Polla I think the advice you got was sound .. lighting is the next thing to concur and I think it has a special place in the must do DIY list. As expressed in this thread http://www.tropicalaquarium.co.za/showthread.php?10503-LED-Lighting we have either a lets go buy a very expensive lighting fitting or add build it ourselves attitude.

What is going to kill the idea for a while to come is the fact that even in our LFS's you can buy an "affordable" LED fixture but by all accounts, these are of poor quality and can only add to the belief that LED's has no place in a tropical tank.

 

Current LED fittings for reef tanks (high light) go for about R8000 to R12000 depending on the unit make etc. I dont know any LED units locally which is produced planted tanks.

 

I can ask the guys that imports the D&D units if they can get them for planted tanks tho....

 

So things are moving along on the LED side ... found a nice paper on lighting that total energy consumption.

If you like pictures ..









or read the full document and picture source at ...

http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/publications/pdfs/ssl/2012_LED_Lifecycle_Report.pdf

Later Ferdie

 

Nice read thanks Ferdie, well that is for the scetches at least lol


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Now,all we need is that the R/$ exchange rate makes importing the good qualite LED's worthwhile.

 

Yeah - the R$ is a bugger, I am actually holding back on a tank project cause the LED price would push it way past what I want to spend.

What I have been doing it looking at low voltage pumps .. so something that I can run straight from a solar panel - they seem to have drop in price also. Who knows maybe one day my inhouse off grid fishroom will be a reality.

Later Ferdie