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100w led flood vs 250 metal halide

3650 Views 13 Replies 6 Participants Last post by  KrypleBerry, 
StormFish
I plan on adding 3 cheapo china LED 100w flood lights (6000k-6500k) to my tank.

Either as a replacement for my 4 CFLs (GE 6500k kelvin 100w equivalent) or replacement for my 250w metal halides.

Its a 125G
With pressurized CO2
And dry frets when i feel like it needs
I run the cels about 5hrs then 3hrs with the MH


What are your thoughts?

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Remmy
Can't say much other than i use 2x 30 watt flood lights on my 3 foot, they do a decent enough job
Seems like quite a bit of light though, 3x100w would probably do the job by themselves
One thing to note is that they get very hot, personally i'd be wary of getting the high wattage ones for fear of them having a short life span due to heat, but that is purely speculative based on experience with my 30 watts
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jeffkrol
Remmy said:
but that is purely speculative based on experience with my 30 watts
Click to expand...
not so speculative.. Electronic inside them have a tendency to fail due to heat. esp. any capacitors..
Chinese have done pretty well making "programmed failures"...;)
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GrampsGrunge
If I'm not mistaken, you seem have a lot of Java Moss in that tank, does it really need a lot of CO2 and ferts? You could make do with a pair of the 60 watt floods and cut your CO2 use in half.
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StormFish
The java over took the tank due to neglect for quite a few years. There is a heck of a lot of crypts(bronze and green) under there and I will be reintroducing some type of foreground. Also planning to get red plants back into the tank. I forgot to mention i have two 250 MH lighting the tank

Maybe I can do a better heat sink before i install the lights? Maybe water radiators? Or do you think PC fans will suffice?

Thanks for the input.
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andiok
StormFish said:
The java over took the tank due to neglect for quite a few years. There is a heck of a lot of crypts(bronze and green) under there and I will be reintroducing some type of foreground. Also planning to get red plants back into the tank. I forgot to mention i have two 250 MH lighting the tank

Maybe I can do a better heat sink before i install the lights? Maybe water radiators? Or do you think PC fans will suffice?

Thanks for the input.
Click to expand...
not sure about the 100w but i run 9x3w=27w with 750mA in one PC heatsink 3"x4" with a fan and the heatsink is cold to the touch. the leds itself are kind of warm.
i have some 50w of these leds in the mail and will test them with pc heatsinks and will let you know.
pls let us know any updates.
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jeffkrol
StormFish said:
Or do you think PC fans will suffice?

Thanks for the input.
Click to expand...
cetainly won't hurt. Depends on your noise tolerance.. Heat for Led's and circuitry are a killer..
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StormFish
So i temporarily put 2 of the floods in and got rid of the two MHs. I just threw some PC fans on there to disparate some heat. One is running at 97 degrees and the other 130 degrees, seems both are within operating range. Plants almost instantly started to bubble up and giving off oxygen(probably just leaking from weak points of the plant). The MH havent given me that effect in awhile, even with new bulbs.

I plan to do a water cooling system with a radiator to cool the water down from the LEDs.

Bump:

Bump:
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StormFish
Just a small update on how the lights are fairing.

Red stem plants are doing great, new bright/deep red leaves sprouting. Not sure if algae is going to grow but the small traces of algae are pearling and I'm not sure if it means its growing or dying.

If you guys can help "shed some light" in this situation, it would definitely help.

I and tweaking the co2 and photo period to try and get a good balance but if yous have an answer, I'll take it.
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StormFish
2
Getting some really good growth here guys.

Did some weed whacking and rearranged a few plants here and there, nothing major.

Bump:

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Forgot to mention, i am just running 120mm PC fans on each of these (i am running three of these lights). It keeps the temp of the aluminum housing where the diode is sitting at or a bit over 50degree Celsius (within or just a bit over operating range from what it said on eBay).

I was getting some algae growth buy it has stopped and i did pick up some albino bristle noses to take care of the minor growth i am getting.


Here is a pic of the ludwigia closer to how it looks in person. Much more red/pink still if you see it in person.

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Remmy
Seems like its working out well for you
Are your floods the type with the single diode or the ones with lots of individual diodes?
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StormFish
Remmy said:
Seems like its working out well for you
Are your floods the type with the single diode or the ones with lots of individual diodes?
Click to expand...

The one with many diodes, i think they are SMDs

I just purchased the ones with EPILEDs and test them out too.
Also have the grow light LEDs that i plan on trying out as well.

I'll keep ya posted.
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GrampsGrunge
Grocery Outlet was carrying some battery powered Work lights with COB chip LEDs for $3 which were 3 watt at 270 lumen output, they really are intensely bright. I'm surprized these COB based lights aren't used more often.
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KrypleBerry
How did the epileds work out? Im looking at a 100 or 150w fixture with 2 or 3 50w epistar chips in them for a 60 cube. I like my 50w smd flood very much as well.
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