Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

hey justa thought...............considering the LED modules that are able (in theiry) to replace HID's for hydro. does anyone see any reason why one couldn't use Blue LED's (or modules) for lighting a marine aquarium?

Steve My metal halide has blue LEDs for spectrum enhancement, and dusk mode. So I would assume no, no reason...

cool, more money to spend...................might even use a few white led's for night mode or moonlight.

Might as well get a couple of doff doff speakers as well then

get it right, rope, its doof doof

I have planted a couple swiss chard seeds once they get going I will use the LED grow light on my little indoor aquarium and snap a few pictures.

I hope it works!

Spotted these today on eBay......

LED Grow Lights - US Supplier

LED Grow Lights - AUS Supplier

Those are not priced bad. I almost bought one but when I did the math I see that they can only be using standard LEDs and not super bright LEDs I was a little less motivated to spend that much when I could build one for just a few dollars using normal cheap LEDs. So I got the small 110 volt 168 LED model to test it and see how well it does before I order 1000 LEDs and spend days soldering.

Hows the testing going? If these work I will put something into the aquarium

I received my LED grow light off ebay. I add some more filtering to my aquarium by putting a pvc pipe filled with gravel, added a pump and put a pre sprouted swiss chard plant into the gravel. The growth was not to bad. Here is the growth over 7 days.



After only two week of having this grow light a section of the LEDS went out and has to be tapped just right to make them stay on. The quality of these china made lights is no surprise, they are not worth what they cost. The growth, however, seemed fine. I did notice the chard grew faster when I used fewer hours of light. I was using 12 to 14 hours of light. 6 hours of light resulted in almost double the growth over night. My camera batteries went dead so I only got the first 7 days captured Then a problem with my filter came up. The bacteria were consuming all the oxygen in the lower part going anaerobic and stinking. So I had to pull the filter out and end this test after only two weeks. I placed the swiss chard in a floating foam raft and the fish immediately went over and ate all the roots off the bottom. Clearly floating rates are not going to work with tilapia...

I just gotta open this can-o-worms again. i know that we've covered it before and in many thread, but just been doing research on the luxeon star III LED modules..........3W led module.........

If you think LED's dont produce heat then look at the junction temp of these little babies..............125C and greater, but max output is had if the junction can be kept at 25C, no easy feat!

my brains hurting again, but i still dont see them as a comparison to Metal halides i've probably forgotten something else i've written so can some one remind me? I've probably just contradicted something else i've said.

Luxeons have at best a 35 lumen per watt output, MH have a 65 lumen per watt.............does not compute. must go check ebay stores they'll have info lOL

gee those ebay leds are shonky they quote the most theoretical figures!

Here is some good data

if http://www.jaycar.com.au/products_uploaded/ZD0407.pdf

http://www.jaycar.com.au/products_uploaded/ZD0436.pdf

i remember now, the benifit is of being able to supply just the two photosynthetic wavelengths...................

PAR is for plants lumens is for people

You got it Steve! The power saving comes from producing only the light you need.

The grow light cranks out a hell of a lot of light for 13 watts! Hurts my eyes.

still the 50% to 90% savings the shonky ebay sites are quoting are un realistic, spesh if they're using crappy low power discrete led's.

the break even point between MH and LED would be if the MH produced 50% of its power outside the PAR range.......which it may do. one day i'll have to look at the spectrum power spread of the MH's