tkfury

I don't have the lights with me at the moment but I was wondering if anyone knew anything about the LED lights designed for aquariums. The ones at Petsmart come in four colors - red for veiwing noctural, green for plant growth, blue for moonlight and white for natural light. I picked up the red one mostly to just give it a try, my cats love watching the tank and cry when its lights off so maybe we'll actually get some sleep heh.

For my 10g that I'm going to get started up in a month or two I was thinking of just getting a glass cover and use the LED lights (they are submersible and have little suction cups). Are the LED lights something that can be used as an actual light source or are they just something "fancy" to use as an addition? I coudln't find anything on the package or find anything online so just trying to make sure.

Isabella

I am not too much informed on the LED lights but as far as I know they're used for night viewing of tanks. They're called moonlights. They come in different colors. I have two moonlights (white natural moon's light) over my 75 gallon tank. They're above a glass top too. Supposedly, the moonlights can be beneficial for planted tanks and saltwater tanks with corals. They're supposedly also beneficial for fish. However, I use them because I like to watch my fish at night while they're resting (Some fish come out at night only, so these lights are great for tanks with nocturnal fish.)

My lights are not submersible. I didn't know submersible moonlights existed - this counds cool

jsalemi

The current crop of small LED lights aren't bright enough to be used as the only light for a tank (unless you use a whole lot of them, I guess ). They're mainly used for accent and 'moon' lighting, as Isabella said.

I've got a blue one for my 10g mounted in the case with the regular light. It comes on when the regular light goes off, and it is fun to watch the fish at night.

tkfury

http://www.petsmart.com/product/inde...rigkw=LED&sr=1

Thats exactly what I'm talking about incase that helps heh. Not sure if they are considered a moonlight of not, I'm not familiar with any kind of lighting other than what came with the tanks. I do plan on having some plants in the 10g so I thought it would be neat as stand alone lights. Ah well - still worth playing around with. Thanks a lot!

jsalemi

An LED won't give you enough light for even low-light plants, and certainly not the right spectrum. You should get a florescent tube hood, which will give you enough light for low-light plants, somewhere in the 'daylight' spectrum (around 6500 degrees Kelvin).

tkfury

Ah, sorry guess I kind of missunderstood the whole thing. Thanks for clearing that up!

The light I have right now is 1.9wpg, I don't really care much for the hood so I'll probablly still be getting a glass one (the light is seperate). How do you find out what spectrum the light is? (sorry to have to ask ^^ didn't see it on the light so I'm not sure heh).

atmmachine816

It will say on the package you buy it in or on one of the ends of the bulb. 6,700K is probably what it will say. You can use LED lights, they are a newer lighting method but they are very expensive and are mainly for saltwater tanks. Like everybody has said the type you are talking about aren't meant for that. Prices are pretty outrageous http://www.jlaquatics.com/phpstore/s...ategory_ID=144

pistorta

I have 4 Blue LEDs (~470 nm) that are built into my light fixture for nocturnal viewing on a 120 gallon (24" deep) tank. Manufacturers claim that it stimulates nocturnal behaviors, and in my opinion, does exactly this. It is not designed to be a primary light source, as they are typically low wattage (~ 1 Watt). Unless you are keeping octopus or some other deeper water creatures, it is not adequate by itself.

I would not recommend putting any light in the water, as it is not natural and in my opinion, would look bad.