What LED Light Should I buy

[jbtbusiness]

Doing some research on what LED lighting system I should buy. My new tank is about a 70 gallon cube and is 29 x 24 x 24. I was looking at the Maxspect Razor 420r 16000k, but was not sure if it will fit right since my tank is only 29 inches wide. My goal is to get rid of all my LPS and do an SPS coral setup. Suggestions would be nice??

[joereefer]

Vega's

[may2024]

to ReefSanctuary
The only advice that I would give is to buy a good quality fixture. I like the look of the Maxspect but I don’t own one they don’t offer one wide enough for my tank or I might have bought one.

[nanoreefing4fun]

to ReefSanctuary, a real Sanctuary of reef forums, with lots of very nice members

Be sure to start a tank thread & share your tank with us, we love pics

We have some great members very knowledgeable about LEDs, that should be able to advise... if you don't get enough feedback here in the meet & greet - ask again in the equipment form

and some good suggestion & advise ^

[PSU4ME]

talk to BigAl about the Mitras.....that would be clutch for your size.

[BigAl07]

I have to agree Bryan

[reefer gladness]

Okay, I'll bite. Before going out and spending your hard earned money you really need to determine the features that are important to you. Do you own an aquarium controller? If not do you plan to? Do you want to synchronize wavemaker functions with the lights? Is it important that you be able to simulate dawn/dusk cycles? Is the aesthetic appearance of the light module important or will it be hidden inside a canopy?

Next, you need to understand what your buying so you can find the best match. The first thing thing to understand that is that nearly all of the LED fixtures out there that are worth buying are using the same primary components. GHL Mitras, AI Vegas, Maxspect Razors, Ecotech Radions, etc. ALL use pretty much the same LED's. There's no magic here, they're just off the shelf CREE and Osram LED's for the most part that you can buy and build yourself at a much lower cost if that's your preference. The difference is mostly in how they package and arrange the LED's, the colors they select and the choice of optics. Another major difference is either the ability to be controlled by a separate aquarium contoller or use a built-in controller. If you plan to use a full-function aquarium controller why spend the money twice for a separate controller built into the light fixture?

If you plan to hang the lights over an open top aquarium you probably want something that looks nice aesthetically. If you're lights are hidden inside a canopy who cares how pretty the box looks? Consider going DIY if you have a canopy, you can source the exact size heatsink you want from heatsinkusa.com and get all the LED's and drivers from a vendor like rapidLED.

A lot of manufacturers are marketing the selection of several different colors of LED's in their systems, yet most use cool white LED's. When building an LED system the first and most critical selection is the white LED. White is the combination of ALL colors so it makes sense to find the white LED that fills in the color spectrum you want. In my opinion the 5-watt CREE neutral white is an excellent starting point yet most have a cool white which has a peak in the blue range at the exact same point the royal blues do. The 5-watt neutral white has a peak closer to regular blue and when you add the royal blue you have a wider spectrum at the important blue end of the spectrum plus the benefit of wider spectrum from the green to red end of the spectrum. You can add colors from here if you want but that's an excellent starting point in my opinion. For the most part corals don't use much green but human eyes register it well. 660nm red is good for growing algae but at lower intensities it may help bring out the color of reddish corals. FYI, most lights made for growing plants include a spike in the green range solely for the benefit of the human eye, it makes the plant look a more natural color of green but the plants (most likely green themselves) reflect the green light.

I think most will agree that you should stay away from 1-watt LED fixtures and also from the manufacturers using no-name chinese made LED's. This is one case where you usually do get what you pay for and overwhelmingly the cheapo LED fixtures do not provide sufficient cooling. How cool the LED's run is directly related to how long they will last and their efficiency, cooler LED's do shine brighter and last longer. They also attempt to push the benefits of several different colors of LED's but fail to provide the drivers on separate channels so you can adjust each color independently.

Finally, I strongly recommend either the rental or purchase of a PAR meter. The human eye can not accurately judge the amount of light that is being made available to the corals in the PAR range and this leads a lot of people to running their new LED's at much higher PAR levels than what their corals had experienced before and in some cases more than they could ever use. I know this from first-hand experience. You can rent a PAR meter for about $50 or maybe your local club has one. Another device is the Seneye which also includes the spectrum in addition to the PAR. I have a Seneye, it's kind of a love-hate relationship. I love the cost factor and value of the PAR meter and spectrum analysis but hate that it requires a separate computer connected via USB to use.

[nanoreefing4fun]

Nice post Sean ^ so much I am always learning about leds