Do LED's fallow the watts per gallon rule?

Discussion in 'LED Aquarium Lighting' started by fish addict, Jun 10, 2010.

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  1. fish addict

    fish addict Spaghetti Worm

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    I'm sorta old school but i know with compact florescent's, t-5's, and metal halide's all fallow the watts per gallon rule. But do LED's also fallow this rule? For example, I have a 30 gal tank with sps in it(i don't really have one it's just hypothetical) . Do i need to have 250 watts of LED lighting for proper growth?
     
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  3. blackraven1425

    blackraven1425 Giant Squid

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    No, because 1 watt of a quality LED will give you far more PAR than 1 watt of MH or T5.
     
  4. fish addict

    fish addict Spaghetti Worm

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    ok, so what is a easy rule similar to the 1 watt per gallon rule i can fallow for LED's?
     
  5. blackraven1425

    blackraven1425 Giant Squid

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    There really is none. Watts per gallon is somewhat outdated as it is for T5/MH/PC.

    LEDs have a huge range of quality, so much so that the highest quality LEDs can have 5-6 times the amount of PAR of a low quality LED, so you're really going in blind if you just use watts per gallon.
     
  6. xmetalfan99

    xmetalfan99 Giant Squid

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    Watts per gallon is an extremely outdated rule of thumb. 300watts of PC does not put out the same amount of par 300watts of T5HO. Just go for quality LEDs if you want LEDS. Buy the fixture with the most quality LEDs that you can afford. You will be fine with doing this.
     
  7. fish addict

    fish addict Spaghetti Worm

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    ok so why i am asking these questions is because i want the jbj nano cube with led's and i'm wondering if i can have hard corals, soft corals, mainly can i put any coral i want in there i want with the lighting it has.
     
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  9. ComputerJohn

    ComputerJohn Panda Puffer

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    fish addict, you do mean follow right?? hehe.. There is such a thing of having too much light and or having it on for much too long.
     
  10. blackraven1425

    blackraven1425 Giant Squid

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    In some sense, it likely will be the thing that lays the watts/gallon rule fallow. LEDs skew the numbers by so much, hopefully it will be left to die.
     
  11. fish addict

    fish addict Spaghetti Worm

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    im just wondering how may LED's are needed to keep coral healthy.
     
  12. blackraven1425

    blackraven1425 Giant Squid

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    As many as are on the fixture.

    I mean, there's 20 different ways that they mount LEDs into a fixture, a bunch of different size LEDs themselves, scores of companies making the fixtures, each of which has more than one supplier of the actual diodes.....it would be nigh impossible to tell you just based on "how many do I need".

    Here's what I propose:

    Go find a fixture you like online.

    Then, go research what other people say about it on forums, what they keep under it, how well it's doing, and if possible find a PAR graph for the fixture and compare it to that of T5s and MHs.