Confused about LEDs

caz2022

Member
I'm in the market for new lighting for 75 gal reef tank. I've been pricing out MH/T5 units. I thought that was the way to go but now it seems that maybe LEDs are what I should be looking for. The problem is that I know nothing about them. I'm looking for a setup that won't restrict what I can have in my tank. Its a standard 75 gal with a 55gal sump/'fuge under it. ANY advice about what kind of LEDs would be greatly appreciated. What wattage should I be looking for?
 

btldreef

Moderator
Since you're in NY, take a look a Acan Lighting. They make some really, really nice fixtures. People on LI swear by them.
 

btldreef

Moderator
I'd pass. It doesn't specify how many watts each bulb is. Most of the cheap units are 1 watt bulbs, for our tanks, we really need 3 watt bulbs. It also doesn't specify the Kelvin equivalent of the white bulbs.
Did you find Acan Lighting?
 

acrylic51

Active Member
I'm not quite convinced that 3w LEDs are totally needed at this point. Depending what you palm on keeping and such. You will find quite a few people with bleaching/loss or change of color and I think some of this coul be due to over powering setups.
 

2quills

Well-Known Member
Yep, just depends on your needs as well as the types of options you like to have in a fixture. Lots of people sucessfully keeping corals under 1w fixtures but you have to look at what factors are involved like depth and what kind of corals you want. Unfornunately none of the 1watt setups come with dimming or controlable features like some of the nicer units and the output that they produce in regaurds to keeping harder corals like sps is limited to shallow depths. Leds can be good but you really need to do alot of research into them to know whether or not what you need them to be able to do is going to work for you or not.
 
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