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Hi there,
I am thinking of taking the fluorescent lights out of my hoods, and replacing them with LED strips. The questions are:
1) I only have fake plants. How much light do I really need
2) How much light do the fish need?
3) Any drawbacks to LED?

Thanks in Advance,
Dan

55G -5x Bosemani, 3x Emerald Cory,3x Red Rainbow, 3x Turquoise Rainbow. 20G-Empty. 10G -4x Danio 3x Cory Fry 1 Gold Mystery Snail. 10G- 1x CAE, 2x Tetra 1x ADF

Hi,
Actually I'm curious to see how this turns out. I've seen
several ads for LED strips and wondered how they would turn
out.

You will have to check equivalencies to see what you will
need. In what is going to become "Olden Terms" you would
want about 2 wpg. With the LED lights that will be left
in the dust and we will need to use lumen's instead.
Here is a site that will give you a good place to start:

http://www.aquabotanic.com/lightcompare.htm

It may take some research to actually find a site that
says "low light plants need X Lumen, Medium light plants
need Y Lumen, and High light demand plants need Z+ Lumen."

Keep in mind that Low light plants are considered around
1.5 to 2 wpg, Medium are 2 - 3 wpg, and high light plants
are 3+.

Now if you look at the individual bulbs in the various
catalogs, you will find that Watts, Temperature, and
Lumen ratings are listed. If you want to compute the
need in lumen's then simply add the lumen rating for the
bulb(s) together and divide that by the tank capacity.
And then work from there.
For instance:
If you had a 55G tank and three fluorescent bulbs on it,
and you had medium light plants, you would want around
2-2.5 wpg. If the bulbs were a 48 inch, standard T-8
bulb, and labeled 40 watts each, that would give you
3 x 40 = 120 watts divided by 55 gallons which equals
2.18 watts per gallon (WPG).
The same bulbs, from the chart, are also rated at
2250 lumen's each so 2250 x 3 = 6750 Lumen's
Then you will need a Light Meter to aim at your led
strip(s) and turn up the LEDs till you get the
lumen figure that you computed earlier.
Mark the adjustment at that point and then you are set.

Folks with just fish, can use from 1 watt/gallon up.
Keep in mind that many fish will want cover (shade)
or hiding places if you have the light intensity too
high.

Frank


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