# True Lumen Pro LED vs. FishNeedIt.com T5-HO



## titansfever83 (Jan 10, 2011)

For starters, I'm looking to light my 24" tall viv. The tank is 30" long and will have several broms, orchids, vines, moss... you get the point. 

OK, my first option I'm looking at are the LEDs listed below, I was planning on buying two of them(24" and 8000K bulbs) with a power cord is around $250. Will this even be enough lighting to keep my red and pink broms, red and pink?

True Lumen Pro LED Strip Lights - 8,000K Sun White Aquarium LED Light Fixtures




My next option are some T5-HOs from fishneedit.com I was planning on getting TWO of the 24" with 6500K bulbs. Comes out to 192 watts total. I know, possibly a little over kill but for every two bulbs there is a power cord so all eight lights would not be on all day long. I would set them up on timers to mimic sunrise, noon, sunset. around $220 with shipping for both fixtures.


2Ft/4Bulbs fixture





I'm sort of torn between the two... I know the T5s will probably produce better light and are cheaper than LEDs, but in about 6-12 months from now I will have to replace the T5 bulbs. 

Just curious what some of you froggers would choose if these were your last two options.






Jamie


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## titansfever83 (Jan 10, 2011)

Anyone?

Water or Gatorade? ....Gatorade is better


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## EvilLost (Jan 10, 2011)

Well, there are several things here...

Firstly, you generally do NOT want 8000K. You should be aiming for 6500K or maybe even slightly lower.

8000K is the color temperature, not the amount of light it puts out. There was no spectral graph link that I saw on the link you posted so I can't tell you how good the red/blue relative powers are, but given the very high color it sounds like lights designed for reef tanks and will be more heavy on the blues.


There are no spec links either so I can't comment on how much light it puts out.

I'm going to assume you are not electrically inclined based on the wording of your post, but for completions sake you should be aware that you can build an appropriate, good powered LED unit from sites like ledsupply.com or rapidled.com but the price will be around the same $200-300 total and will require electrical knowledge.

The T5HOs will work fine, but consider the heat output of 8 bulbs. Also, how wide is your tank exactly? A 4x bulb fixture is like 6-8" deep (i'm guessing, but its fairly deep) so you'd need quite a deep tank to put 8 bulbs side by side, and since your tank is only 30" long I don't imagine you'd have them on end wasting 18" of the 48" total..? 

Also, if you do go the route of the 8 plugs, its pretty easy to splice them together and can be done for less than $5 and very minimal electrical knowledge.

If you are interested I can help you design (or simply build and send you) an appropriate LED light...PM me for details.


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## titansfever83 (Jan 10, 2011)

EvilLost said:


> Well, there are several things here...
> 
> Firstly, you generally do NOT want 8000K. You should be aiming for 6500K or maybe even slightly lower.
> 
> ...



I researched for a while and couldn't find any hard info on either of the lights I listed. I was hoping some members would reply that own or may know some specs on these lights.

My tank is 18" front to back and the fishneedit.com lights are 9" wide and there are 4 plugs total with two bulbs per plug. And I'm not worried about the heat output. I would only have all 8 lights on for a short while to mimic afternoon sunlight and if it becomes to hot in that short time then that's nothing a small case fan wouldn't fix.

I would consider a DIY build but not for this tank. It's a small tank(56gal column) and it's not going to be my main show tank, thats my next build. This tank was just collecting dust in my garage so I decided to put it to use before I buy another tank. 

Thanks for the reply....... here's another question though.... on the fishneedit.com lights, you have options to have all white bulbs, or 3 white and 1 pink and so on. If I were to mimic daylight starting with two bulbs, then four, then six........ would the plants be fine with using all white bulbs or would adding one pink bulb to the first two bulbs that come on and the last two that turn off at night, provide any benefit to viv plants? Again, I have no specs on the pink bulbs, not sure what K rating they are or if they are offered in the 6700k.


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## EvilLost (Jan 10, 2011)

As a general rule for non aquatics, RED wavelengths (lower color temps) are used by plants to FLOWER while BLUE wavelengths (higher color temps) are used by plants to VEGETATE (grow stems/leaves).


I have found generally good success with 6500K "white daylight" but the relative distributions are still somewhat relevant (though most bulbs on the market will be close enough it will be fine for these purposes)

If you plan to use a few bulbs to simulate sunrise/sunset, I would recommend getting the more pinkish bulb and using it then. I havne't done it personally so I can't say how well it would work...my dawn/dusk is done using a dimmer only though I do wish to try incorporating some slight reds in future builds)

It will also slightly aid your flowering, but *personally speaking* I find the red/pink hue to be VERY aesthetically disturbing so I wouldn't use it maybe other than at dawn/dusk due to the aesthetic disturbance. Since you said this was a display build, I would stick to 6500K most likely


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## Tomoko Schum (Jan 14, 2012)

While 6500K is ideal, Takashi Amano (the guru of planted aquarium) uses 8000K PC for aquatic plants and is very successful growing aquatic plants with it. All plants have accessory pigments besides chlorophylls to utilize the sun's energy through various wave lengths. As long as the LED lamps can provide the full spectrum light, it does not matter so much to the plants that the lamp has a higher peak in the blue spectrum.

I recently set up my 20 gallon tank with two inexpensive 9W LED bulbs and one CFL lamp in ExoTerra hood from lightyourreptile.com  They are very bright and cool running. Take a look at this bulb at their site. I believe that they have 13W lamp as well.


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## phender (Jan 9, 2009)

I don't have an opinion either way, but here are a few things that may or may not influence your decision.

There is no way you will need 8 T5 HO bulbs if you go that route. One fixture with 4 bulbs is plenty. 4 HO T5 bulbs are rated at 10,000 lumens. That is enough to keep your broms colored up (it is for mine). Red bulbs are used for blooming. If you have plants in your viv that you want to bloom, they will be more likely to with a 3000k bulb with 3 6500k bulbs, but it will give your viv an yellow/orangish cast. Its not that noticable unless its sitting right next to a viv with all 6500k bulbs. Your T5s will last 12-18 months. The 6 month thing that a lot of reefers use is mostly for actinic bulbs whose spectrum output degrades pretty quickly.

I am not a LED expert, but here are a few things to consider. Each of those strips produces less than 2000 lumens of light. LEDs are very directional, they don't have much spread. You are going to need 5 LED stips to equal the light output of 4 T5 bulbs. The LED strips are 16 watts. The T5s are 24 watts. So, you are not even saving that much in electricity. I'm bored so I crunched some numbers. If you use 4 LED stips vs. 4 T5's and ran them both for 12 hrs/day (assuming Tier 3 rates of 23 cents/kwatt*hr) you would save a grand total of $32 a year using the LEDs. 

So its going to cost you closer to $500-$600 for the LEDs vs. $100 for the T5s if you want equal lumens. For the 10 years your LEDs are supposed to last, you will have saved ~$500 in replacement bulbs and ~$320 in electricity costs (as the rates stand now), but you would have started $400 - $500 in the hole. In addition you don't know whether or not the 8000K LEDs produce the correct spectrum that your plants need. Since they will grow corals I assume they will grow plants pretty well, but because they probably don't have much in the way of red spectrum you likely won't have many plants blooming. That may or may not be a problem for you.
I have a Begonia prismatocarpa in a viv lit by an LED bulb that is 6500K and is brighter than the CF bulb that it replaced. This type of begonia normally blooms all the time. Since I changed to the LED, it hasn't bloomed at all. It might be other factors, it may be coincidence, I don't know.


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## hydrophyte (Jun 5, 2009)

If you use 8000K LEDs your plants will be a sad gray-blue color. I have already tried this.


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## Tomoko Schum (Jan 14, 2012)

LED has a long life (40,000 hrs.) You don't have to replace your bulbs for many years.

LED's are improving by leaps and bounds. There are full spectrum fixtures out there than can grow plants just fine (or hard corals in reef tanks.) The problem is that these fixtures are still very expensive. I suspect that the cost will come down in a few years, though.

If 8000K LED lamps make plants look grey, it must not have the full spectrum. I would avoid lamps like that for sure.

I would like to try some small flowering plants in my vivarium. I am considering a miniature orchid or a miniature african violet.


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## Rhesus Feist (Jan 20, 2011)

I have worked with the LED strips and the Fishneed it fixtures you linked, and I would suggest a single 4 bulb T5 fixture. 

I've only ever used those strip LEDs to light fish only saltwater tanks. Visually, they don't really seem to have any higher output than a standard T8 bulb, but I do not have access to a PAR or lumen meter to check actual output. You should be able to use them, many people on here light their vivs with T8 lamps and seem to do fine. I have never used the LEDs on planted tanks, so I don't know, but you may have trouble with your red plants holding their color.

I use a 2 bulb T5 HO fixture on a 24" deep planted aquarium, and I am able to grow medium light plants on the bottom of the tank fairly easily. one 4 bulb fixture would be plenty for your viv, even with the 18" front to back dimensions. Florescent lights are a diffuse source of light, they cast their light over a broad area. You will have plenty of coverage front to back, a 24" fixture ona 30" tank may give you a little bit lower light on the ends of the tank, but you shouldn't have any shadowed areas.

The Kelvin number (the 8000K 6500K numbers) is a measurement of the color of the light, and how the light affects colors look under that light. 6500K bulbs generally produce the best results when growing land plants and freshwater aquatic plants. You can fairly easily grow viv plants under 10000K light, but the light will have a slight blueish hue, and your plants may not grow quite as well. The pink bulbs dont have a K rating because they have a fairly narrow spectral output in the red range. I have not used them for vivs, but when I use 4 bulb t5 fixtures on freshwater tanks I like to use one pink bulb and 3 6500K bulbs. The pink bulb doesn't add as much plant usable light as the 6500K daylights, but the pink bulbs do make the reds in the tank (on plants and fish) pop a little more. Pink bulbs wont make green broms redden up, but they will help pop the red color on plants that are already red.


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## Tomoko Schum (Jan 14, 2012)

I used a 10,000K 70W metal halide bulb to start some vegetable seedlings last two years and they grew tremendously better than under my 6500K fluorescent lamps. This could be simply the matter of intensity, but I can tell you my seedlings loved 10,000K spectrum and reached maturity (developing some buds) faster as well. It was a bit of surprise to me since I thought that they may not set flowers under the 10,000K Ushio (very crisp white rather than blue). I was using the lamp simply because I did not need it any more on my nano reef tank.

As far as the lamp set up for titansfever, I agree that 6500K T5 or T8 lamps should work well. If you suspend the light fixture high enough, the heat should not be a great concern even to us southerners in Alabama.

I went with LED's because a single 55W PC lamp (suspended a few inches above the 20G tank) pushes the temp up by 10 degrees. In the summer time with the central air stepping up to 78 degrees when no one's at home, I won't be able to use the PC. LED's on the other hand seems to have very little influence on the tank temp at the moment. I am not sure how many degrees a short T5HO lamps would increase the temp inside a tank, but I just could not take the risk.


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## EvilLost (Jan 10, 2011)

Tomoko Schum said:


> While 6500K is ideal, Takashi Amano (the guru of planted aquarium) uses 8000K PC for aquatic plants and is very successful growing aquatic plants with it. All plants have accessory pigments besides chlorophylls to utilize the sun's energy through various wave lengths. As long as the LED lamps can provide the full spectrum light, it does not matter so much to the plants that the lamp has a higher peak in the blue spectrum.



As I stated in my original response, NON-aquatic plants use the red spectrum for floweringand the blue spectrum for vegging (growing leaves and stems). This is a generalization of course. Aquatic plants use much more "blue" light; this has to do with a lot of factors, but from my understanding one of the primary factors is the ability for blue light to penetrate deeper into water whereas the longer red wavelenghts can not do the same.

Your comment regarding the reds being 'in there' is roughly correct; however, color temperature is essentially an average of the relative wavelengths included. What this means is that if you have a higher color temp the RATIO of blues:reds is going to be higher, and while this may be beneficial in some ways it will also be negative in other ways. To clarify: It it the INTENSITY of the light (luminosity) that actually affects "how much" light is shot out. The color temperature is a rough measure of the ratio of colors in that light. IMHO, for terrestrials, you are better off using a more even ratio of reds:blues more similar to natural sunlight (ie closer to 6500K range) whereas for aquatics and the like you want to raise your blue ratios.

I need to do some more research into the actual chemistry of the plants to see what exactly happens if you supply sufficient reds but "too many" blues...perhaps someone can clarify the chemistry that happens

The OP did not mention anything about aquatics; He mentioned several standard terrestrial/epiphytic plants that would all benefit greatly from the red parts of the spectrum (ie lower color temp). As you stated yourself, Takashi is a guru of planted AQUAriums. Water changes things alot.


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As for the LEDs, I have not found any satisfactory light strips on the market (for the price). 

HOWEVER, the current line of CREE XM-L LEDs is absolutely fantastic (putting out ~750 lumens @ 3W if I recall correctly). They are available for "do it yourself" builds and I will be offering custom-built LED units very soon (soon as I can get my website up...). 

Imho, LEDs are RIGHT on the verge of breaking the "must have" barrier, and right now the CREE LEDs is definitely a worthwhile investment for bigger/more serious keepers (though still pushing the upfront costs and technicality on the build). The LEDs also come in several colors and DO contain a fairly solid mix of spectrum, but more importantly since we must work with individual LEDs the colors can be controlled very easily. 

@Tomoko: regarding your 10k MH bulb. There could be several reasons for this; first of course you must compare their relative luminosity. Secondly, as I said above, blues help VEG (leaves/stems) so having the higher color temp during THAT PHASE OF GROWING is beneficial. However, when it comes to *FLOWERING* the flowers will be duller using a 10kK lamp than a 6500K lamp (accounting for relative / equal luminosity, of course)

I know several horticulturists who run their nurseries on 2 lights: a blue-heavy light during vegging and they switch to a red-heavier light for flowering.


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## Tomoko Schum (Jan 14, 2012)

> The color temperature is a rough measure of the ratio of colors in that light.


Yes, this is correct. I also look at spectrum curves like this to compare bulbs. Many lamp manufacturers tweek the color output of their bulbs. Bulbs in the same 8,000, 10,000 or 14,000K color temps do not always look the same because of that.

While the intensity is very important, the correct wavelengths is also important as well. Plants perform photosynthesis by harvesting light energy with photo reaction center that contains chlorophills. Chlorophyll a is most active at a wavelength of 410nm to 430nm and partial around 662nm (blues), while chlorophyll b collects the most photons at 453nm to 642nm (reds). Besides chlorophills plants use many accessory pigments such as carotenoides and phycobiliproteins to utilize other spectrum. You can see how plants produce glucose through photosynthesis by looking up calvin cycle or light dependent reaction. Calvin cycle is the chemistry part of the plants.

Many plants that are used in vivariums and terrariums are terrestrial, but quite a few are aquatics and semi-aquatics that can grow underwater and above ground. The majority of the aquatic plants grow at water's edges receiving full light. Only a small number of them live so deep where they receive mainly light in blue spectrum. In shallow water, the spectrum is practically the same as the spectrum above water. I mentioned ADA's (Amano's) lamps mainly because of 8000K color temp.


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## titansfever83 (Jan 10, 2011)

Nice discussion from everyone and sorry I haven't chimed in on some of the most recent posts... i had to go out of town for a bit. 


Anyway, I'm not gonna go back and respond everyone's post for one, because I just got home and I'm tired. 

I have decided to not buy the LEDs because I just think that for the money that they cost, I'm not getting the amount of light I want. I would be better off with some DIY LEDs, but, like I said, this tank was just collecting dust in my garage and it is definitely not a show tank so I'm not gonna spend much money on it. 

The reason why i mentioned getting two of the T5-HO fixtures was that many of the ratings for them say they have very cheap bulbs in them and most would say just buy one fixture and replace the bulbs with some better ones. Well, if I do get both the fixtures and it does turn out to be too much light(which I think it will be a close overkill) I have another tank, with crappy lights, that I could put the second fixture on. 

I really appreciate everyone taking the time to discuss this and it has taught me a few things. I have a bad habit of trying to stretch a dollar, in other words, "which of the crappy fixtures I posted is the best, LOL!" kind of an oxymoron


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