Quote:
Originally Posted by stan zemanek
In a few years It will be fun to watch all the LED guys and gals talk about what kinds of issues they are having with their corals. I can see it now they will be buying new skimmers, throwing all kinds of snake oils in their tanks only to come and realize that their corals have died because the LED's have in fact worn out. Of course by then that will be the last thing they will have thought of because everybody has bought into the "LED's last forever mentality".
|
I don't mean to derail the thread but a few things need to be clarified here. Where did you hear about the "LED's last forever" mentality? I thought it was pretty common knowledge that LED's are rated for up to 50,000 hours. Assuming the fixture itself doesn't malfunction (at which point you hopefully kept that warranty card), that's roughly 8-12 years of usage, depending of course on how long the diodes are on during the day. Most people don't even keep reef tanks for that long, let alone lighting fixtures! I think by "forever", you really mean "until I upgrade" or "until my wife makes me take the tank down".
All lights lose output over time and LED's are no exception. How quickly they drop off depends mostly on their build quality, how efficiently they disperse heat and if they are overdriven. Most aquarium LED fixtures use high quality Cree/Luxeon LED's that are NOT overdriven and cool them down with fans and heatsinks. They will experience losses within the next few years but it will be miniscule and largely negligible because most people don't run their LED's anywhere near 100% so any drop off can be easily compensated for by a boost in intensity.