Growth led vs aquarium led

[Impetus]

I believe our best chance is to mimik nature and not play Gods and give a fragment of what nature provides.

The more we know about that approach of human engineering in nature the more we learn that we kill biodiversity and polute.

This goes for chemicals, spectrum of light and medicin.

That being said I do agree its nice with the software the aquarium LED manufactors provide.

 

[C4ctus99]

My dad is a software developer, maybe I’ll make a light and look into building a controller with a Wi-Fi compatible part and selling it

I’m already looking into making my own dimming controller for a daylight cycle

 

[Hats_]

Wow a lot of people defending companies that are robbing them blind.

I dint know about grow lights, but I use led shop lights in all my freshwater and those grow my plants like crazy.

for my reefs, I either buy used LED’s or but Agriculture T5 fixtures and switch the bulbs to ATI.

if any has ever build and led fixture it costs under 200 bucks for every 2x2 feet that is covered PROPERLY. Not talking like an AI prime. But leds end to end. Tack on acrylic for fancy looks and a name brand and somehow that’s Andes up to 1200. And R&D is almost nonexistent or these papers would be published. Eco tech did some research back before G4 and that’s about all I can think of off the top of my head. Pumps are also overpriced. I can’t wait for the MP40 patent to run out so jebao can copy it.

and before I hear about reliability I purchased a used jebao, ran it for 2 years without cleaning it and lost it in a move. Never died with over 4 years of heavy use.

The point being is that these companies are robbing us blind with 5-10x profit margins and we are doing nothing about it. Good thread

P.S. Didint want to derail the thread but coral suppliers do the same thing. You would never guess the wholesale price in some of these corals that go for 100’s of dollars.

swapping to t5 would for me cost me way more than the leds on a yearly basis for my tank in running costs with the current price per kWh here (€0.60) also i dont want to deal with switching t5s out until they stop being available here soon (next year t5 fixtures for just room lighting are no longer being sold here, wonder how long t5s for reef tanks will last here after that) and i mentioned before that growth leds wont do it for me colour wise and electricity costs wise. and that is IF it can grow the corals i keep (among those some deepwater acros).

call it 'robbing us blind' call it regular business, it makes no difference. if youre gonna complain about this you should complain about every product you buy that has a markup imo.

 

[Jacked Reefer]

swapping to t5 would for me cost me way more than the leds on a yearly basis for my tank in running costs with the current price per kWh here (€0.60) also i dont want to deal with switching t5s out until they stop being available here soon (next year t5 fixtures for just room lighting are no longer being sold here, wonder how long t5s for reef tanks will last here after that) and i mentioned before that growth leds wont do it for me colour wise and electricity costs wise. and that is IF it can grow the corals i keep (among those some deepwater acros).

call it 'robbing us blind' call it regular business, it makes no difference. if youre gonna complain about this you should complain about every product you buy that has a markup imo.

I recognize businesses need to make money. And that’s why I outlined jebao, which is a very successful business that does not need to charge way more than costs. There are other great companies that can make a living without scraping the market for everything it will give.

as for t5 vs led that is not an argument that needs to be on this thread. However if you want proper coverage and par you should be using the same wattage of leds that you would use of t5, halide is a little different due to intense UV IR and head producttion. But watt for watt t5 and led are comparable. I also switch out my

t5 will also not be phased out. People have been saying that for a decade now (mainly BRS who, spoiler alert, is owned by Bertram) about t5 and halides and IMO they are growing. With companies like reefbrite expanding their halide inventory, and geismann and ATI still producing the same quantities of bulbs.

the point op is making about the plant growth LEDs is they use similar parts to make as Reef LEDs yet at 5x the price. Not that you should ditch your fixtures and buy plant ones. But that something is fishy with the reefing industry (pun intended) if they can get consumers to pay 5x for something that is the exact same.

 

[Hats_]

I recognize businesses need to make money. And that’s why I outlined jebao, which is a very successful business that does not need to charge way more than costs. There are other great companies that can make a living without scraping the market for everything it will give.

as for t5 vs led that is not an argument that needs to be on this thread. However if you want proper coverage and par you should be using the same wattage of leds that you would use of t5, halide is a little different due to intense UV IR and head producttion. But watt for watt t5 and led are comparable. I also switch out my

t5 will also not be phased out. People have been saying that for a decade now (mainly BRS who, spoiler alert, is owned by Bertram) about t5 and halides and IMO they are growing. With companies like reefbrite expanding their halide inventory, and geismann and ATI still producing the same quantities of bulbs.

the point op is making about the plant growth LEDs is they use similar parts to make as Reef LEDs yet at 5x the price. Not that you should ditch your fixtures and buy plant ones. But that something is fishy with the reefing industry (pun intended) if they can get consumers to pay 5x for something that is the exact same.

If that is the point OP is trying to make then it sure devolved, from what im reading he wants to have people test growth leds over a reef tank but hey, if im mistaken then ill own up to that. And if this is all true maybe someone needs to research this by going through the production chain.

i wont get into the led vs the t5 argument but ive done my math when i set up my tank and it would have costed me a couple hundred euros per year more to run t5s. Also the t5 phasing out may not be close in the US but over here in the EU they are sure looking to kill it all in the name of the environment, and i for one think that leds have come far enough to properly replace t5 but we'll see.

 

[EL_Perron]

Wow a lot of people defending companies that are robbing them blind.

I dint know about grow lights, but I use led shop lights in all my freshwater and those grow my plants like crazy.

for my reefs, I either buy used LED’s or but Agriculture T5 fixtures and switch the bulbs to ATI.

if any has ever build and led fixture it costs under 200 bucks for every 2x2 feet that is covered PROPERLY. Not talking like an AI prime. But leds end to end. Tack on acrylic for fancy looks and a name brand and somehow that’s Andes up to 1200. And R&D is almost nonexistent or these papers would be published. Eco tech did some research back before G4 and that’s about all I can think of off the top of my head. Pumps are also overpriced. I can’t wait for the MP40 patent to run out so jebao can copy it.

and before I hear about reliability I purchased a used jebao, ran it for 2 years without cleaning it and lost it in a move. Never died with over 4 years of heavy use.

The point being is that these companies are robbing us blind with 5-10x profit margins and we are doing nothing about it. Good thread

P.S. Didint want to derail the thread but coral suppliers do the same thing. You would never guess the wholesale price in some of these corals that go for 100’s of dollars.

I wouldn't call it robbing us blind. There are lots of cheap options out there...I don't want those, I am not going have a hood on my tank, so the light housing needs to look pleasing. Again, having the control of the channels is worth the price of admission.

What is a cost of an ATI bulb...$20?, if you have a 6 light fixture, that is $120 roughly every year, so in 5 years $600 an LED could go 10 years, so not $1200 just in bulbs, not counting the fixture...plus absolute lack of control and minimal color mixing. Frankly...I haven't seen color as good as the Radions get on the market. AI runs a close second...everything else is just too blue or too white. There is reason so MANY top tanks run Radions and I can assure it is not because it has ecotech's name on it. It is the color, the software, the look, the controllability, etc. Not just that it has some LED's in it. Sure, it is a matter of opinion on color...but they dominate the market with a ton of other options out there. That is not because Ecotech is better at marketing.

A Camry can get me back and forth to work without issue, it also can have all the fancy options in the world and I would still rather have a Lexus, a Mercedes, an Audi, etc, Sometimes it is more then the core fundamentals that people will pay for.

Just cause you have had good luck with cheaper alternatives, doesn't mean that is the case as a whole...

Sure when the patent runs out, they can copy it...however, if that company hadn't actually produced it then there would be nothing for them to copy. It is because companies believed that creating something like MP series would land with folks willing to pay a higher premium price and so they went down the road of time and expense to develop it. It could have flopped and they would be out lots and lots money. Typically in life, the greater the risk, the greater the reward. That goes for anything...hell, even gambling. If I double up betting $2, it is insignificant, if I double up betting $100k, now we are onto something. Without them doing taking that risk and spending that money on a maybe, Jebo would have nothing to rip off.

The naming of corals has been going on forever and does raise the price, however it allows people to follow certain corals. I have been really out of the hobby for awhile and they have ramped it up as of lately. However, there is more then just the cost of coral that goes into the prices.

The beauty of this country is that if you want "buck the trend" of this industry...you can go rent space, set up tanks, start vendor relations, pre-buy corals, cut them up, buy a nice camera and good macro lens, take photos of them, buy shipping supplies and then ship them out. Then you get to answer questions every, deal with DOA's (legitimate but mostly not legitimate), etc.

You can then also go into the design process of your LED light, once you have a design, pay to have pre-production units done, test them for a year or so without money coming in, then make adjustments, then place a order (usually large quantity), design the packaging and buy those supplies (usually in large amounts), get them here, market them, handle the customer service side, etc. That doesn't even factor in making a robust back end like AI or Ecotech, that allows massive control of all these things. I can assure you no one is stopping you from doing this...so please, please go make a similar light to Ecotech or AI for $200.

You would be surprised how thin the margins are on businesses...Id be willing to bet dollars to donuts, they aren't making the crazy money you think they are. However, maybe they are emailing customers from their custom gold p private jet that they take to Paris for the weekend and to get some begets.

 

[Impetus]

I completely get why people are angry.

People bought a very expensive car and Im the guy asking how many horse power it has, whats the size of the engine, what tyres etc the car has...

The only reply is that the seats are blue.

I would get mad as hell too.

 

[MoshJosh]

I didn't intend to muddy the waters by talking about testing grow lights. It is something I want to do/have wanted to do personally. The reasons WHY I want to try it relates to OPs thread. I think there are many quality grow lights out there (that use similar technologies and sometimes even the same components) that, while not being the "correct spectrum", may offer enough light in all spectrums that they can grow corals well enough. . . and at a fraction of the cost. I also think that IF the companies making those lights changed some of their diodes out and focused more on the specrums we know corals use, they could produce a great reef light (good coral growth and aesthetically pleasing) with little to no change in the cost of the product.

This is all hypothesis on my part, and would need testing.

And I am sure others have already tried this, but hey I like to test things out and do DIY stuff so why not.

 

[Hats_]

I completely get why people are angry.

People bought a very expensive car and Im the guy asking how many horse power it has, whats the size of the engine, what tyres etc the car has...

The only reply is that the seats are blue.

I would get mad as hell too.

except that we know all those things, just not what the engine cost. bit of a weird comparison if you ask me

 

[NkSde]

I won’t lie I have a weird light setup rn, but I also am not ready for coral and plan to upgrade first to something more appropriate.

since she’s a fowlr rn I stole a set of my wife’s grow lights and tapes em on a shelf above my tank.

i am intrigued though in application of grow lights w blue spectrum emphasis.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B08Z7Q54L7?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

Those are the ones helping my fishies see rn and a clip on full spectrum hitting my in tank fuge fir a few hours a day.

it’s weird but the fish are happy and chaeto thriving so it’ll work for now til I start planning coral additions.

 

[Impetus]

except that we know all those things, just not what the engine cost. bit of a weird comparison if you ask me

What diodes do they use?
What the par score?
Whats the quality control?
Any IPX rating?
Any external lab report?
Where is the proof blue light is the best for an ecosystem?

Its a very good comparison and people are angry because i rock the boat.

I get that

 

[Jacked Reefer]

If that is the point OP is trying to make then it sure devolved, from what im reading he wants to have people test growth leds over a reef tank but hey, if im mistaken then ill own up to that. And if this is all true maybe someone needs to research this by going through the production chain.

i wont get into the led vs the t5 argument but ive done my math when i set up my tank and it would have costed me a couple hundred euros per year more to run t5s. Also the t5 phasing out may not be close in the US but over here in the EU they are sure looking to kill it all in the name of the environment, and i for one think that leds have come far enough to properly replace t5 but we'll see.

Fair points, I am not well bereaved in the international markets, just what is in the US, I do agree that LEDS can compete with t5 in coral growth and spectrum. But I know there is something special about the extra spectrum you get with T5.

I wouldn't call it robbing us blind. There are lots of cheap options out there...I don't want those, I am not going have a hood on my tank, so the light housing needs to look pleasing. Again, having the control of the channels is worth the price of admission.

What is a cost of an ATI bulb...$20?, if you have a 6 light fixture, that is $120 roughly every year, so in 5 years $600 an LED could go 10 years, so not $1200 just in bulbs, not counting the fixture...plus absolute lack of control and minimal color mixing. Frankly...I haven't seen color as good as the Radions get on the market. AI runs a close second...everything else is just too blue or too white. There is reason so MANY top tanks run Radions and I can assure it is not because it has ecotech's name on it. It is the color, the software, the look, the controllability, etc. Not just that it has some LED's in it. Sure, it is a matter of opinion on color...but they dominate the market with a ton of other options out there. That is not because Ecotech is better at marketing.

A Camry can get me back and forth to work without issue, it also can have all the fancy options in the world and I would still rather have a Lexus, a Mercedes, an Audi, etc, Sometimes it is more then the core fundamentals that people will pay for.

Just cause you have had good luck with cheaper alternatives, doesn't mean that is the case as a whole...

Sure when the patent runs out, they can copy it...however, if that company hadn't actually produced it then there would be nothing for them to copy. It is because companies believed that creating something like MP series would land with folks willing to pay a higher premium price and so they went down the road of time and expense to develop it. It could have flopped and they would be out lots and lots money. Typically in life, the greater the risk, the greater the reward. That goes for anything...hell, even gambling. If I double up betting $2, it is insignificant, if I double up betting $100k, now we are onto something. Without them doing taking that risk and spending that money on a maybe, Jebo would have nothing to rip off.

The naming of corals has been going on forever and does raise the price, however it allows people to follow certain corals. I have been really out of the hobby for awhile and they have ramped it up as of lately. However, there is more then just the cost of coral that goes into the prices.

The beauty of this country is that if you want "buck the trend" of this industry...you can go rent space, set up tanks, start vendor relations, pre-buy corals, cut them up, buy a nice camera and good macro lens, take photos of them, buy shipping supplies and then ship them out. Then you get to answer questions every, deal with DOA's (legitimate but mostly not legitimate), etc.

You can then also go into the design process of your LED light, once you have a design, pay to have pre-production units done, test them for a year or so without money coming in, then make adjustments, then place a order (usually large quantity), design the packaging and buy those supplies (usually in large amounts), get them here, market them, handle the customer service side, etc. That doesn't even factor in making a robust back end like AI or Ecotech, that allows massive control of all these things. I can assure you no one is stopping you from doing this...so please, please go make a similar light to Ecotech or AI for $200.

You would be surprised how thin the margins are on businesses...Id be willing to bet dollars to donuts, they aren't making the crazy money you think they are. However, maybe they are emailing customers from their custom gold p private jet that they take to Paris for the weekend and to get some begets.

and to each their own. I cannot control what other people find value in. Personally I’d much prefer a good ol’ 96 F150 over a luxury car. But it’s just taste at the end of the day.

also even if I have to spend 1200 in bulbs over time on a 48 inch tank. That’s still half the cost of 2 G6 radions that it would take to run the tank.

and funny you should mention the free market. I’m actually opening up a coral store out of my garage to hopefully shed light on how exorbant someo f these vendors are.

p.s. from what I’ve heard. The owner of WWC is a big name on the Ferrari forums. Maybe not private jets to Paris. But it’s still a lot of money lol.

 

[Hats_]

What diodes do they use?
What the par score?
Whats the quality control?
Any IPX rating?
Any external lab report?
Where is the proof blue light is the best for an ecosystem?

Its a very good comparison and people are angry because i rock the boat.

I get that

im not angry lol, whatever you say is not gonna make me change the way i reef anyway.
diodes: i understand why x company will not disclose this for fear of being copied yet quite a few actually state what they use (tunze, maxpect, redsea all state this)
par score: is very dependent on what tank dimensions, acrylic or glass, how many units, tank depth and what par meter used. yet again most companies will give an indication with a picture
quality control: idk about the us but in the EU we have quality marks that products need to have to be sold here.
the IPX rating seems to me a bit irrelevant but thats just me, still some companies state this as well (orphek for example)
external lab report of what?
and the other one you can look for some papers online for or look at the picture i sent before in this thread , yet it seems to be the norm in this hobby for decades and i think that has a reason

 

[Hats_]

What diodes do they use?
What the par score?
Whats the quality control?
Any IPX rating?
Any external lab report?
Where is the proof blue light is the best for an ecosystem?

Its a very good comparison and people are angry because i rock the boat.

I get that

https://orphek.com/or3-hybrid-reef-aquarium-led-bar/ maybe have a look here?

 

[Impetus]

If that is the point OP is trying to make then it sure devolved, from what im reading he wants to have people test growth leds over a reef tank but hey, if im mistaken then ill own up to that. And if this is all true maybe someone needs to research this by going through the production chain.

i wont get into the led vs the t5 argument but ive done my math when i set up my tank and it would have costed me a couple hundred euros per year more to run t5s. Also the t5 phasing out may not be close in the US but over here in the EU they are sure looking to kill it all in the name of the environment, and i for one think that leds have come far enough to properly replace t5 but we'll see.

My native language is not English.. Am I OP?

If yes, then it started out as a comparison of the prices. Then it developed into whether a marine ecosystem in a tank only need the blue range or the full spectrum light.

Both is welcome but I do get the feeling not a lot of people read everything before they answer.

 

[Hats_]

My native language is not English.. Am I OP?

If yes, then it started out as a comparison of the prices. Then it developed into whether a marine ecosystem in a tank only need the blue range or the full spectrum light.

Both is welcome but I do get the feeling not a lot of people read everything before they answer.

yeah OP is Original Poster

 

[EL_Perron]

Fair points, I am not well bereaved in the international markets, just what is in the US, I do agree that LEDS can compete with t5 in coral growth and spectrum. But I know there is something special about the extra spectrum you get with T5.

and to each their own. I cannot control what other people find value in. Personally I’d much prefer a good ol’ 96 F150 over a luxury car. But it’s just taste at the end of the day.

also even if I have to spend 1200 in bulbs over time on a 48 inch tank. That’s still half the cost of 2 G6 radions that it would take to run the tank.

and funny you should mention the free market. I’m actually opening up a coral store out of my garage to hopefully shed light on how exorbant someo f these vendors are.

p.s. from what I’ve heard. The owner of WWC is a big name on the Ferrari forums. Maybe not private jets to Paris. But it’s still a lot of money lol.

I hope your math is better with your business ;-). 2 XR30 G6's are 950, $1200 only about 55% less and you factor in a t5 fixture of $300 on the cheap end and you end up with only a few hundred dollars difference without factoring in the back end controllability. You'd probably make that up on the electrical bill with not having t5's. Again, what t5's offer vs. what a Radion offers in terms of color is subjective...there isn't a T5 tank that I think looks better then one with a properly set up Radion light. there is no point in arguing color preference, that is subjective to a certain degree...(most people don't like stark white over their tank and most don't like heavy blues...most land somewhere in the middle), there is no right answer to this. The point I am making is that it goes beyond just the leds in the fixture that people are paying for and it is not this massive rip off that the OP is so dead set on proving.

Your garage is a completely different thing then a store front with rent due on top of a mortgage. Good for him, hopefully we could all aspire to being able to own Ferrari's if we wanted. Also, unless we know all of his finances, there is no way to be sure that he doesn't have income from somewhere else, which my guess is that it would be. Many times business owners have other revenue streams. Again, people don't have to buy from him...they choose to. Regardless of names, picking out cool looking corals and photographing them under the "right lighting conditions" is what sells these corals at high prices. Put them under white light and they are h-hum at best and wouldn't command the money they bring.

 

[Xenia]

Well in the old days we only had full white spectrum lights, but a few years ago somebody found out with heavy blue you get the dang Teletubby colour tank, so now everybody is on blue because prices coral sky rocket up because of the Blue, its a dang win win for the business not for the reefkeepers themselfs.
Why does a led light cost 1200 because it can go for 10 years ? Normal grow lamp cost 200 goes for 10 years aswell ?

I did some work in a fish store,

We sold SpongeBob houses for in the fish tank, buy inn price 20 cent, we sold it for 12 euro, take the hint.

Oh and dont forget the "game" name my coral, huge for business. And you people themselfs are weird aswell pricing your frags so high, drop all the prices of your own frags bij 80% and make reefing a normal hobby again.

If im sad i always watch the selling forum here, it makes me laugh so hard, dang you English talking people and their bouncing stuff 650 bubble tips for 500 or up keep on going you only will get people that are in it for the frags they can sell and the real reef lovers can't afford it anymore. If you wanna change do it together make a selling list buttons 5 euro a head frogspawn torch 10 euro a head, bubble tips 10 euro, everybody happy accept retailing, i know you guys can do it only if you want to !

 

[C4ctus99]

So I figured out part of the cost difference. Full spectrum grow lights use mostly white LEDs whereas 50%+ of reef lights seem to be blues. Colored diodes are 2-10 times as expensive as white ones depending on what you get.

As to efficacy of running only blues vs full spectrum, not certain it would be a huge difference since full provides what the blues have and each LED node is pulling the same power regardless.

You can get some of the Samsung LM301H LED nodes for as low as $0.26 each. Buying a single 460nm Cree XP series LED is minimum $1, but it can run up to $2 or $3

I am going to try and put together a cost for building a 48”x12” fixture myself, soldering everything in, sourcing drivers and LEDs, but building my own controller. I’ll get back to y’all in a year when I’m done researching

 

[Jacked Reefer]

I hope your math is better with your business ;-). 2 XR30 G6's are 950, $1200 only about 55% less and you factor in a t5 fixture of $300 on the cheap end and you end up with only a few hundred dollars difference without factoring in the back end controllability. You'd probably make that up on the electrical bill with not having t5's. Again, what t5's offer vs. what a Radion offers in terms of color is subjective...there isn't a T5 tank that I think looks better then one with a properly set up Radion light. there is no point in arguing color preference, that is subjective to a certain degree...(most people don't like stark white over their tank and most don't like heavy blues...most land somewhere in the middle), there is no right answer to this. The point I am making is that it goes beyond just the leds in the fixture that people are paying for and it is not this massive rip off that the OP is so dead set on proving.

Your garage is a completely different thing then a store front with rent due on top of a mortgage. Good for him, hopefully we could all aspire to being able to own Ferrari's if we wanted. Also, unless we know all of his finances, there is no way to be sure that he doesn't have income from somewhere else, which my guess is that it would be. Many times business owners have other revenue streams. Again, people don't have to buy from him...they choose to. Regardless of names, picking out cool looking corals and photographing them under the "right lighting conditions" is what sells these corals at high prices. Put them under white light and they are h-hum at best and wouldn't command the money they bring.

Edit: pressed send to early

Apologies. I don’t mean to be attacking anyone here. I’m not disparaging WWC or anything. If people will pay it why the heck not charge it. I would love a Ferrari too.

As for my math I was cooking food so I kinda just guesstimated. But for my 4 bulb agriculture fixtures it costs 175 plus 100 dollars in bulbs to start so 275, I change my bulbs every 18 months so 100 about every 1.5 years. So about 950 dollars for a decade (rounded up assuming everything by is new) For similar wattage and coverage I would want 2 x xr30s, which cost 950 each, so that’s exactly double over 10 years for my given usage on a 4 foot tank. This doesn’t including mounting, driver/ballast replacement, led replacement (as leds at 100 percent power should be changed every five years or so), or energy consumption. So there is a lot more variables. Another factor to consider is I have not seen a single person keep an led fixture for 10+ Years Due to upgrades in the market , vs halide and t5 I’ve seen run for 30+.

again this is a convo that I think derails the thread. But I have run radions g5s, AI 64 and 16HD, black box, homemade leds, halides, and t5’s. And that’s just on personal tanks. Not tanks I have maintained or run for the LFS’s I’ve worked at. And to me Halide looks the best by far, but just has certain restrictions that t5’s don’t have.

at the end of the day this hobby is our personal preference’s. And I just prefer to not pay a premium price for fixture I like less than what is cheaper. I do agree that this hobby has become my way or the high way, and I hate that. There are infinite ways to have a great looking tank. Wether that be with the latest equipment, or used stuff that’s older than I am. It all comes down to what each individual wants.

at the end of the day I am fighting for a hobby that is less price restrictive as I know for a fact it can be. I have seen a lot of the back end pricing and price butchering that happens since over been working in the industry for 4 years. Setting up a tank shouldn’t require +10k dollars to set up, and I want people to have options that work and are cheap. But to find those it seems you have to look outside the hobby. There’s an old joke I’ve heard that you can slap reef on something and charge 3 times what it should be worth. And the more I’m in this hobby the more I know it’s true. I want to do my part to fix that.