Best LED solution for a Dutch style aquarium (budget 1000 $)

Jessy2363

Junior Poster
Aug 27, 2015
21
3
3
New Zealand
Peter Moran said:
I'll tag in on this thread too as I'm in a similar boat. My new tank will be essentially a 60cm cube so I am looking for a light that can be attached to the back of the tank 'pendant fashion' rather than resting on the tank itself.

I was originally planning on the Kessil but then spoke to Jessy2363 and she suggested looking into some others and now I'm thoroughly confused (thanks Jess :) ).


After reading some comments on here about the Kessils being weak in the red spectrum I'm a bit concerned about those. I want to make the right choice the first time. At these prices it's not likely my partner is going to allow me to change my mind and try something else.


I have a similar list to you guys:


EcoTech Radion XR15 Freshwater


Kessil A350 WE Tuna Sun


Aquatic Life HALO LED Freshwater


ELOS PlanetCompact


AquaIllumination Hydra TwentySix HD


Anyone got any preferences?

Considering the kessil struggles to grow red plants nicely. I wonder how well the AI grows red plants considering the spectrum would be somewhat favouring blue. There is a small shortage of red chips and the blue far outweighs the red. I am leaning towards the AI hydra also because of the fact it is customisable. I've read posts of where people turn the blue down and crank the red up to try and make up for the fact it is a marine light with more blue than red. See it would be perfect if it was made for freshwater as the idea of having to dim a heap of them seems like a waste of led's. Also is there really enough red. I am quite fussy about how my tank looks regardless of plant growth. I don't want the tank to look too cold if you know what I mean. Also the only video I saw of it on a tank was that thunder storm youtube clip. I would love to see more photos or videos of it in action on a freshwater tank but did not manage to find anything on youtube or google. I will email the photon people to ask if they ship to NZ and how much it costs to customise. Any more info on the AL hydra would be great however as I am still considering it.
 

brrrpr

Subscriber
Jun 1, 2016
74
4
8
I kept for four months a temporary marine setup with two 300 w AQUAMEDIC HQI lights (metal halide). One of these lights was completely blue (not actinic) the look of the tank was a bit strange but I got used to it and the plants under the blue half of the tank were growing like in the other white half without problems. At the time I didn't have difficult ones and I had to stop the experiment after the second 400 euros electricity bill.


Please what do you mean by: Kessil struggle to grow red plants ? I want to grow difficult red plants like the various Rotala species, are Kessil more suitable for this type of plant ? Do you mean that the red lights (red spectrum) are better for red plants ? I heard that blue spectrum is what a red plant mostly need but I am not sure about it.
 

Jessy2363

Junior Poster
Aug 27, 2015
21
3
3
New Zealand
I read it on this thread here about the kessil not being good for red plants. however that's not definitive just something i read. http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/a...alo-led.40481/ It's a discussion about kessil and halo.


In regards to the red plants I have been told by various people that red plants turn more red with red light but also need blue to grow, obviously. I am not sure what to believe and should do some more research myself than taking people's word for it but when I look at a lot of lights designed for planted tanks I see white led's, red led's and blue led's so the light contains a range of colours and not just 6500K which contains all the spectrums. Some of this will be due to bringing out the colours in the fish and plants also. But I think it is beneficial to actually have red and blue and white and yellow and not just one kelvin rating that contains the whole lot moshed into one colour. This is my theory anyway based on what i've seen, could be wrong of course. But If you think about it you're getting high intensity of both opposite ends of the spectrum with individual colours. Anyway check out this photo of Dennis Wong's planted tank. As in look as his light and the colours of the led's. plenty of red, a few blues and lots of white also. It's not just a bit long strip of 6500K. Another thing to point out is if you look at terrestrial grow lights they are nearly always just made up of red and blue led's. Obviously we don't want our tanks looking pink and red and blue but terrestrial plants no doubt suck up the same spectrums as aquatic plants to grow. We just don't use the same colour combo because A it would look terrible and B the overload of red may not penetrate through water very well. But there's a reason why they use red and blue led's and not just 6500k or 7000k for terrestrial grow lights and those reasons would apply to aquatic plants also. Check out Dennis Wong's tutorial on light. quite interesting

 
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