Please help me understand a lighting concept

I am looking to upgrade my lights and as I am investigating and reading the vast amounts of threads about them there is one concept that confuses me. I often read suggestions from reefers have some of the more expensive and or powerful lights that they do not have the lights fully ramped up. Often they quote as keeping them at only xx percentage of power. This confuses me because then why do we need such a powerful light? Is it another issue with the light such as general brightness etc? Because why would I need to buy a light that produces say 800 PAR at 12 inches when all I going to do is tune it down when I can save money and buy a light that produces the same amount of PAR at the tuned down PAR. Hope my question makes sense. I just want to fully understand all points before I make my next purchase.

 

I think it's to make the lights last longer, if you buy something and run it at full capacity all the time, it will die on you faster. Also, LED's are supposed to last a very long time, but one thing that kills LED's fast is heat. But getting better lights and running them at 30% power you make sure heat is never an issue. But this is just my guesses from computer/electronics perspective.

 

My local club keeps 2 PAR meters for it's members.
I'm the 'keeper' of one of them.
It's nice to know what the PAR #'s are in general.

On my LED's I currently running the bluer channel at 70%, and the whiter at 35%.

YOu can't get any less $$ than these lights
Currently $99 shipped, and they are PAR MONSTERS!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GU0CHUU/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

I dont run the Dirt cheap lights but I dont run the Radios either. I have a Reef Radiance Lumentek Pro 240. I run it at 70% blue and 40% white. hitting 200 par 20" deep in my tank. My lights are more powerful than I need because.. well. why not. I paid around $300 for them but also ran a less expensive model prior to these. for asthetic reasons I switched.

now, my lights dont have much in the way of Fancy features like storm mode and lightning and all that. I have seen the Radions in person, they produce a very good color in the zoas, but the blues were also turned up higher.

With LED, Less power= Less heat. Sinc eheat is the #1 killer of Leds (and most lights) Less heat= Longer life.

 

+1

Some lower-powered LEDs have been known to discolor in as little as 1 year, drastically reducing their PAR and altering their spectrum when run at 100%.

 

Ah makes sense. Thank you all. Very close to ordering lights Todd suggested (can't beat that price) Just not sure if I want to pay a lot more for the fully programmable lights at this time. decisions decisions!!!

 

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