LED Questions

**kshafer** · 06-03-2012, 01:24 PM

Five weeks ago I set up as 9 gallon planted Eheim tank with soil under gravel and LED lighting as a test prior to setting up a much larger tank later this summer. Specs on the LED light say 6500K and 3100 lux. Not much is happening in the tank other than the Anubias fell apart. Leaves basically rotted off where they connect to the stem. Everything else (dwarf sag, amazon sword, jungle val, ludwigia) is living but not thriving. My questions are:
1. Is 3100 lux not enough light? The tank looks "bright". Even though this tank was set up as a test, I'd still like to keep it going.
2. The new tank will be 180 gallon, 6x2x2. I really want to use LED to light it. Does anyone know of an LED system that has been successful in growing plants? The tank will be low tech with soil under gravel and no CO2. If not LED, I'm thinking T5.

I've been researching this project for well over a year and lighting has been a real obstacle. Any help I can get in that area would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for your reply.

**CalmSeasQuest** · 06-11-2012, 02:31 PM

I'm not aware of an effective method to convert Lux (or more likely Lumen) to PAR and it also depends on the the distance from the lights. I can say that based on your comment it "looks" bright - odds are you have way too much PAR. LEDs are very efficient at producing PAR - much more so than MH or T5 lighting. The vast majority of all the light produced falls within the 400~700nm. At equal PAR, LEDs will appear to the human eye as being much "less bright". This is a large part of the reason many switching to LEDs from other types of lighting have problems.

I'm brand new to planted tanks (20 year reefing veteran) so take this with a grain of salt.

**kshafer** · 06-11-2012, 04:14 PM

Thanks for the reply. I'm new to planted tanks too. I've had fish only tanks for 40 years starting in college, always freshwater, and want to try something different with live plants. I raised the time that the light is on from 8 to 10 hours when I wasn't seeing much growth. Maybe I should drop the time down. I know there will be a lot of trial and error. The purpose of the question was to get some discussion on LED in general to see if that is the way I want to go on the big tank. I wasn't getting any replies so I posted the question on the two specific brands.

**Htomassini** · 06-13-2012, 05:56 AM

The eiheim unit is very powerfully. Under water on a 9 gal tank I'm pulling 60par at substrate. Your anubias melted. You need higher light plants for that tank.

Henry tomassini
www.theplantedaquariumstore.com
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

**kshafer** · 06-13-2012, 01:06 PM

That's great information. Thank you very much. I increased the hours each day (8 to 10) that the light is on thinking I probably didn't have enough light. Should I reduce the hours of light?