t-8 led look to grow coral w/o expensive fixtures!!!

The link you posted sums up my main concern with these fixtures. Check out the "More about emitters" portion of the LED section of the link. Here are a few quotes:

"...not all emitters are equal..."

"Worse would be the cheaper no name emitters used by manufacturers such as BaiSheng & others and sold under a plethora of other names for so-called aquarium use; these use daylight emitters that can vary from 2000K to 6500K and are in reality totally useless for aquarium use other than just plain light!"

"There is a reason many LED knock offs utilize 100 plus emitters (often 1 watt each although the SkyLED is ONLY .06 watt per low PUR output emitter). These older technology LEDs use a shotgun approach to achieving aquarium lighting (similar in principle to my use of a dozen low end T12 fluorescent light tubes 30 years ago to achieve adequate lighting)."

I'm not sure if your fixtures are "good" or "bad"... that's why people want to see some data on them. Without that information I tend to stick to the "if sounds too good to be true" adage.

Tom

im with you there. the bulbs appear to be high quality grow lights for hydroponics. This does not appear to be any crappy shot gun fixture. maybe the manufacturer can stick in the appropriate leds if there is a market for them. I would say, with my humble experience that this light is the Shiote in low budget reef lighting applications. the front is plastic and the back is aluminum. here is a tank lit with only one og these led bulbs dont mind the duct tape. this is just a storage tank.

here is a view from the top. please notice if you can the two 4 month old ho t5 bulbs in the back vs the led in the front.


I hate the too good to be true stuff myself. i dont think this is the case here.

i have just installed 2 of these lights in the invert system at the store (Reef Solutions).
the existing lights were the T-12 bulbs. massive improvement. not only in the amount of light produced, but color quality too. So out came my par meter(Apogee). without a doubt the par in the 6" water depth was increased by 3x compared to the T-12 bulb.
what really amazed me is when i took the par meter over to the fish system tank that had 1- 65k GE t-5 bulb and 1-ATI Blue Plus t-5 bulb running, both bulbs being 4 months old, and had the exact same par readings at 6" water depth as the LED tubes.
i plan on testing more at deeper water depths. but the LED tubes were already installed on the invert system, so that limited me to 6" depth. i would assume the LED would penetrated deeper. more testing will prove this, and will be coming soon !!

it's tough to compare these to other bulbs directly... The T12 bulbs that were replaced could have been d, which would diminish their output, for example.

Having said that, I would surely use these over vho and other alternatives! As mentioned before, these are similar to early gen 1 sunbrite tubes. A gen 3 tubes has at leat 4 times the output.

I am going to follow this post. I am definitely interested, I have a pc fixture that I need to replace bulbs on soon. I just can't seem to justify it on old technology, but my wallet is telling me otherwise. I would love to update with minimal out of pocket

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Flynnstone

i have just installed 2 of these lights in the invert system at the store (Reef Solutions).
the existing lights were the T-12 bulbs. massive improvement. not only in the amount of light produced, but color quality too. So out came my par meter(Apogee). without a doubt the par in the 6" water depth was increased by 3x compared to the T-12 bulb.
what really amazed me is when i took the par meter over to the fish system tank that had 1- 65k GE t-5 bulb and 1-ATI Blue Plus t-5 bulb running, both bulbs being 4 months old, and had the exact same par readings at 6" water depth as the LED tubes.
i plan on testing more at deeper water depths. but the LED tubes were already installed on the invert system, so that limited me to 6" depth. i would assume the LED would penetrated deeper. more testing will prove this, and will be coming soon !!

---

Any updates???

It's important to understand that PAR is reading the phytosenthasis emitted spectrum.These LED's are probably beblow the 430nm level but most likely put more LUX out which is good for plants.I would be willing to bring both meters over and give you a comparison if you want.Like PJR stated these things would probably host LPS just fine.Are those AI's that you have on the new tank pic's?? If you raise them up 12 inches you would get great spread just a suggestion.They are desigened to be atleast 12 inches above the water line.Pretty cool idea tho and very cost effective.

I have been using them in tanks with zoas and anemones. they look great! all are happy three weeks later.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by carlitofish

I have been using them in tanks with zoas and anemones. they look great! all are happy three weeks later.

---

good to hear!! lighting prices are getting crazy so it's nice to see a product for the budget minded that really works