LED

I am wanting to go LED over my tank and rather have a fixture I would like to use pendants. I saw some people at spring fest using these bulbs you can get from walmart and was curious how those worked out.

 

I am not sure the walmart LEDs will giv eyou the par you need. In fact, I would be inclined to say they will not. I know they make screw-in type led bulbs specifically for this type of application, but they do go for about $100 a pice.

 

what par am i looking for? I have seen them up too 38par and dimmable. for around 100 bucks.

 

Not sure if that 38 par is an accurate number. If it is, it's way too low. You want 300-700+ in the water depending on the coral you keep.

 

I looked it up. Apparently PAR in those bulbs simply referrs to an outdoor floodlight. The number (38) refers to the actual size of the bulb.

 

What size tank and what depth is the tank?  I built my own LEDs for my biocube29 and have my LEDs picked out to build my own for my 180g I am getting ready to build in to my wall.  I know you said you didn't want a fixture so I'll try to recommend what I can but need to know tank size and depth before I can give any advice.  But I can't beleive the wal-mart ones would do any good what so ever especially if they don't have blues in them.  You have to have a certain wavelength of blues for corals to be happy.

 

I saw a thread on the nano-reef forums about building your own LED setup from ebay parts. He had a setup for his 55g which was about $130 if I recall correctly, so not too shabby on the price.

 

I believe Eco-Exotic is the company that makes the PAR38 LEDs (I may be wrong). They will be at MACNA.

If you're going to do DIY setups, I'd make sure you use CREE LED's. The cheap Chinese ones are ok for display purposes, but not for growing coral. ReefLEDLights.com is a great source for DIY LED info. They will also have a booth at MACNA.

-JB

 

JB I have a standard 90 24inch deep. i really would like to do a couple pendants not that I dont like the look of say the AI ones, just looking for something that will allow me more area for top down viewing