Marineland Reef Capable LED Fixture-Wishful thinking?

[TMF89]

Hey guys, I live in a college rental house where the electircal system is very finicky, it works fine but has a very low tolerance for amps, and right now the breakers are about at their limit. Now I've heard all the arguments and all the advice about putting a tank in the house with that, so please just stick to advising me on this product. At this point if I want a reef tank I'll either have to run an extension cord from the bathroom (separate circuit) to the tank for a MH fixture (I know you're not supposed to use them permanently, but so far all I can find on why not is just because OSHA and other organizations say you shouldn't. And even they don't say what constitutes "permanent", so I'm almost thinking it's mainly a liability issue), or have to look into LEDs. However I AM a college student, so I'm trying to budget everything. Would I be able to keep some low-moderate light corals with something like this? It'll be on a 29 gallon tank, which is 18" tall and 30" long. I also have a 20L tank, which is the same length but only 12" tall. Would the six inches make a difference?

http://************.com/2010/08/27/reef-capable-led-marineland-lighting-fixtures-released/

[chadfarmer]

u have to raise them atleast12 inches over the water to get some spread out of them

[TMF89]

How do they do at keeping the corals alive?

[chadfarmer]

no clue they just got 1 at local fish store on a nano cube

[andyman]

well looking at my lux meter I can give you my readings.

12" below the light but above the water and directly under the light I get a lux of 13k lux

move 3" to the side of the light (right or left of the mid of the light) and lux drops to 1.4k lux.

Directly below the light but under 1" of water 4k lux. Go 6" under water but directly below the light its 2.4k lux. The light level drops a little when not directly at center.

With that said the light isn't exactly that wide either. You could double them up to make them wider depending on tank size but if your gonna pay more, you may as well get the AI lights.


For me, $250 was perfect sump light.

In comparison, my 400W mh puts out about 3k-4k lux 12" below the surface of the water. My coral is roughly 20" below the water surface and gets an avg lux of 2.4k lux.

[7hogwarts]

Don't believe you have to keep low light corals with LED lighting. I "bought" into that thought, bleached the heck out of a lot of sps. killed some. LEDs may not appear as bright to the human eye but a par meter will tell you the truth. Check out the massive thread AI lighting par readings.

[Anemonebuff]

Don't believe you have to keep low light corals with LED lighting. I "bought" into that thought, bleached the heck out of a lot of sps. killed some. LEDs may not appear as bright to the human eye but a par meter will tell you the truth. Check out the massive thread AI lighting par readings.

Very true. LEDs do not look as bright as MH but they can be PAR monsters and burn your corals. I burned back some palys and a leather when I switched from 175 watt MHs to LED PAR 30/38s. I went from 543 watts down to 111 watts with the switch.