chinese led lights

[rixhater]

2 of the LFS near me use the cheap LED's as well. 1 of them has 5 of them on their display tank with several SPS and it looks great. The corals have been doing well and is actually the tank where most of their mother colonies are that they frag from. Like i said before i can't lecture on details or specifics or technical aspects of these lights but i am very happy with them especially for the price. i like them better then the 4x54w T5HO i had and better then my old 2x250 14k hamilton halides but thats just my opinion.

[TropTrea]

Originally Posted by rixhater

2 of the LFS near me use the cheap LED's as well. 1 of them has 5 of them on their display tank with several SPS and it looks great. The corals have been doing well and is actually the tank where most of their mother colonies are that they frag from. Like i said before i can't lecture on details or specifics or technical aspects of these lights but i am very happy with them especially for the price. i like them better then the 4x54w T5HO i had and better then my old 2x250 14k hamilton halides but thats just my opinion.

Be careful here as your comparing apples to oranges. With the t-5's there are so many variables.

On my 75 gallon I had two 400Watt MH's plus 240 watts of atinics
Then when I switched to a 120 gallon I went with a 8 bulb HOT5 fixture and I'll tell you it was much brighter than the MH's I had and using way less power.

I have been switching out my smaller 30 and 40 gallon breeder tanks one at a time to LED's from 4 HO-T-5 units. I have found that 24 LED's running at about 2.5 Watts each is considerably brighter than my 4- 39 Watt HO T-5 lights were. And look at the electrical difference was 156 watts and now it is
60 watts of light.

but time will tell as far as how great the corals do or do not do on this LED light. In 3 months I'm seeing some color shifts some making corals look better other making them less appealing.

[TropTrea]

Originally Posted by Snausy

link?

Well after spending the night last night looking at DIY threads I think it'd be much easier and not much more expensive to go this route. I'm not an electrician and after buying all the equipment for the DIY the "black box" route seems the easy win. Maybe I'll go DIY eventually just because it'd be a fun project but for now this is it. I hate that I need 4 because that's 4 times the possible trouble. Warranty needed.

Now I wonder if there is a concensus on which are the best boxes...especially for my 31" deep tank. 3w crees that actually run 3 watt maybe? There seems to be about five favs to choose from in this thread. A US dealer with a warranty would be nice.

I like the seller rating of http://www.ebay.com/itm/150726029374...#ht_5696wt_984 but 120 degree optics for such a deep tank might not be optimal.

Can you guys that have them help me come to a decision so I can just get this done and over with please! haha

4 boxes at 165.00 is just about the same as I paid for my 4' T5 fixture. Lighting a 300 gallon with LED for less than 700 seems like it's finally worth it.

I think they make stunner-strips or something like it with reds and actinics if we want to enhance the color later. Heck I have a huge amount of space up there to put strips. Bang for buck these boxes are looking good to me. New kids in the family have a way of changing where your money goes eh. Daddy doesn't get the good stuff anymore.

If someone is going from scratch with a new tank to me it become a no brainer today to go with LED's.

However when it comes to upgrading form HO-T5 it is another story completly. Depending on the effeciency of the system your getting you will be reducing your electric bill in half with the most effecient LED's or if you get a poor LED set up will end up with the same electric bill.

There is the savings on replacing light bulbs with LED;s over T5's. On average I was spending $50.00 per month on new light bulbs. If I spend $128 to put in the equivelent light in LED's to the two bulbs I'd be replancing I'm spenidng more now but ill start getting my money back on just bulb replacement after 2 1/2 years. But besides this there will also be a savings on my electric bill. Now that is with a DIY project that I'm doing phase by phase.

With comercioal fixtures it can be another thing completly. Your forking out X dollars and cent initialy that could rang from $100 to $2,000. How long will it take you to recover that cost on your own set up. It will vary for everyone. You may get your money back in 2 years or it might take a full 10 years after which time some newer better lighting fixture might already be out.

If your switching over is all can advise is that you your math for your situation. Then way the risks and choose what your comfortable with.

[jrp1588]

I'm selling my ATI sunpower for about the same money I'm investing into my Ebay LED's. By my math, I'll save about $200 a year in electricity and bulb replacement. Pretty immediate ROI for me. haha

[rixhater]

I plan on selling my 4x54w T5HO as well. although i wont get my money back since i just put all new bulbs, lol. In my defense tho my LED's werent initially meant for this tank or as replacements they were suppose to be for the new 240g that im working on from scratch. I did enjoy my t5's and dont really have any complaints but i do like my LED's better. just my opinion. Ill have a better opinion once the LED's have been running for a few more months so i can see if there is any change with my corals.

[Atomikk]

Originally Posted by stevercleeze

does anyone out there have an opinion on led lighting systems direct from china? when i look at the stats of alot of these light panels it shows some pretty positive looking numbers, for example i just looked on alibaba and one seller is selling a 120x1w led panel with bridgelux/epistar chips. 60 14k bright white and 60 455nm blue leds.
http://www.aliexpress.com/product-gs...olesalers.html
i have heard about cheap build quality and low par numbers but i wonder how much of this is really true on a consistent basis. there are always lower quality systems out there but when you can get lets say this panel for 189$ vs the ecoray 112 with nearly the same numbers for 579$ you have to ask if the difference is that real or just a bit of hype. i would appreciate any input from anyone out there with any experience with these lights. thanks everybody

Never ever deal with anyone from China on Alibaba. They are all crooks. Trust me, I paid that mistake.

[tntneon]

And why is that ?
I have only good experiences in terms of quality , only a faulty power cord is what happend with wrong one time ...

[convict3]

I switched from a 250 watt reef optics mh to the 120 watt ebay and my corals look a lot better. Pics to come soon

[GroYurOwn]

just wanted to give a bit of an update.

I received a purple encrusting from bluezoo about one week ago. When I received it, it looked pretty brown, I initial had placed it very close to the top of the tank, but had to move it to the sand bed because of space issues. So it spent several days at the top, and about the same amount of time at the bottom. It is now MUCH more purple. I have very good polyp extension. Time will tell in terms of growth, but as of now the monti seems to be very happy. In the same shipment I received a browned out orenage encrusting monti, after about one week it looks more orange, and even fluoresces a bit in the actinics.

Check this thread out for pics of the tank. My BTA loves these lights also.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=2135317

As a reminder, I have two 120 watt units, with 3 watt leds from aquariumleds.com

[BigAirHarper]

Thanks for the update groyurown and everything is looking good.

[rixhater]

Originally Posted by GroYurOwn

just wanted to give a bit of an update.

I received a purple encrusting from bluezoo about one week ago. When I received it, it looked pretty brown, I initial had placed it very close to the top of the tank, but had to move it to the sand bed because of space issues. So it spent several days at the top, and about the same amount of time at the bottom. It is now MUCH more purple. I have very good polyp extension. Time will tell in terms of growth, but as of now the monti seems to be very happy. In the same shipment I received a browned out orenage encrusting monti, after about one week it looks more orange, and even fluoresces a bit in the actinics.

Check this thread out for pics of the tank. My BTA loves these lights also.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=2135317

As a reminder, I have two 120 watt units, with 3 watt leds from aquariumleds.com

really nice pics... i have a nice camera but cannot take pics like that for the life of me. Is it a special lens or mode you use to shoot macro like that? sorry not to be off topic

[ccolt1]

Nice Pics! After reading this and thinking of adding leds to accent my 2 250w DE MH I am now thinking of buying 2 120w leds and upgrading. I have a 60g tank and was wondering if 2 would be enough for it. I have a mixed tank with LPS, softies and clam and would like to try SPS someday but I am worried if these would take care of those corals. Thanks!

[rixhater]

Originally Posted by ccolt1

Nice Pics! After reading this and thinking of adding leds to accent my 2 250w DE MH I am now thinking of buying 2 120w leds and upgrading. I have a 60g tank and was wondering if 2 would be enough for it. I have a mixed tank with LPS, softies and clam and would like to try SPS someday but I am worried if these would take care of those corals. Thanks!

There are several people who say they do great and others who don't like them but there have been several people in this thread including myself who love them. i have 2x120w pendats above my 90 and have several lps and sps and so far they are all doing great and look great. i doubted how strong they were till i put them on my tank. i posted pics yesterday i believe in this thread you can see what the lights look like on my 90 and some other guys have had some great pics as well.

[convict3]

I also have a good samsung camera but cant get nice pics is there a special setting

[GroYurOwn]

ccolt1- two over a 60 should be MORE than enough, esp if you get the 3 watt lights. My tank is about 18 inches deep and 36 inches long. My biggest problem was TOO MUCH light in such a small tank. I had to mount them vertically (perpendicular to the front of the tank) so that there would be less light on the sides for things like shrooms and to acclimate things to the light. i completely lost a bright pink monti cap frag and a bright green digital and i think it is solely due to not acclimating them to the ultra bright LEDs. I think these are a great buy and I think aquariumleds.com stands by their product. The fact that he was going to ship me parts for free (i pay shipping) to fix something that was completely my fault is awesome.

Have to go to work, will right a bit about the pictures in a bit

[jrp1588]

My new lights come in tomorrow! I love new toys! I'm anxious to see how these stack up to a premium T5 fixture like my ATI sunpower.

[GroYurOwn]

I just created a thread with some tips for photos http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...1#post19983581 , didnt want to hijack this thread.

[TropTrea]

Originally Posted by convict3

I also have a good samsung camera but cant get nice pics is there a special setting

I have a Nikon and it drove me crazey as well. Everything just turned up blue. If your camera has a lighting adjustment you want to sett it to highest K temperature under florescent it will go to. This is usualy on either light source or withe adjustment.

The other thing is using photo shop if you have it do an automatic gray adjustment. This pulls any remaining excess blue out of the picture.

[ccolt1]

Thank you guys for the advice! I think I will get and sell my MH to recoup part of the cost... I hope they work well..

[TropTrea]

Some general thoughts:

When picking a fixture find out what kind of LED's and what wattage each is actualy running at.

1 Watt LED's usualy give about 60 lums per watt great for moon lights.
3 watt leds Crees are giving off 90+ Lums per Watt now.
5 Watt LEDs Cree's are now pushing 110 Luums per Watt and they just broke under $10.00 per chip.
10 Watt LED's Crees are pushing 120+ watts per LED but they are not yet available in the Star mounts.

But just think it you needed 1,000 lums total
10 watt leds = 8.5 watts on 1 LED
5 Watts leds = 9 Watts on 2 LED's
3 Watt LED's = 11.1 watts on 4 LED's
1 Watt LED's = 16.6 Watts on 17 LED's

All giving out the same amount of light. This is based on Cree LED's and most other manufacturers have older designs that are not quite hitting these numbers and in some case are way off of these numbers.

[convict3]

Still can get good pic on my camera but i have had a, believes its called a pinkish devils.finger leather, for over a year that has looked.like.a. sad melted gumdrop. And after 1day with these ebay leds is finally opening up.

On a side note my white hammer has its mouth fully open. So about 60% of the head is mouth. Is it a problem . Shoult i moveit down. It is mid way in the tank and about 14 inches from.the light

[TropTrea]

Originally Posted by convict3

Still can get good pic on my camera but i have had a, believes its called a pinkish devils.finger leather, for over a year that has looked.like.a. sad melted gumdrop. And after 1day with these ebay leds is finally opening up.

On a side note my white hammer has its mouth fully open. So about 60% of the head is mouth. Is it a problem . Shoult i moveit down. It is mid way in the tank and about 14 inches from.the light

Most of the Soft corals are what I call low light durable corals. They usualy can take a real beating and still look great which is great for beginners. I'm not sure if the open mouth means it is looking for more or less light but possibly more food. With a Softie moving it to a lower light area should not hurt it. If it needs more light it will eventualy reach up to the light itself. Unless you realy put it in the dark.

[jrp1588]

Just got my black box ebay lights today.

Positives
1)They look nice, good solid construction
2)Very bright
3)The shimmer effect is interesting, I've always used T5's so it's new to me.
4)Colors are almost on par with my old ATI sunpower, reds aren't quite as strong though
5)Peeking through the cooling grates you can clearly see a good sized heat sink. Combined with the fans the unit stays very cool.
6)When all the blues are on by themselves the fluorescence is unbelievable. WAAY better than all ATI Blue +

Negatives
1)The hanging system is garbage. They are designed to hang from a single point. This allows the fixture to rotate around too easily. Both my fixtures are cocked at about a 20* angle, but all it'll require to hang from 2 points is another caribeaner. (Just wish I had considered this before I drilled into the ceiling. In the future I may modify an ATI hanging kit to work with it.
2)The LEDs are BRIGHT. I don't have a canopy, so if I accidentally look up at them, it's blinding.
3)Fans slightly louder then ATI sunpower, then again there are 3 of them per fixture vs 2 on the sunpower. They look like standard PC case fans though, quieter ones could probably be found for a few bucks each and easily installed.
4)shimmer effect confuses my eyes a little bit sometimes.

So far the corals seem happy, but that doesn't mean anything yet. I'll get pictures tomorrow after I properly mount the fixtures from 2 points.

[GroYurOwn]

I agree, the shimmer is strange, if you stare at it on the sand to intensely it may actually cause a seizure. I had to raise my lights up off the water due to my fear of them falling in again, and now the shimmer is still there, but much more faint, nice but not too intense.

Being that i had to disassemble mine after dropping it in the tank i can confirm they are indeed computer fans, and would be VERY easy to replace, in fact I immediately thought about doing it once i opened the unit. Now especially since after dropping the one in the tank one of the fans is much louder. If i do it i will post here with results and parts used.

[GroYurOwn]