Blueline LEDs

[loki32687]

Anyone ever use one of these fixtures? Haven't seen much on them aside from them being on Champions site. They now have 2w and 3w fixtures.

 

[DoctaQ]

if you are talking about the screw in bulbs they will generally be quite yellow, even if you get cool white it will only be 6.7k probably, white par style bulbs are a dime a dozen

changing some out to blue will also be hard as well, there are quite a few reef friendly bulbs out there

 

[loki32687]

These are what I'm referring to...

http://www.championlighting.com/home.php?cat=1554

 

[DoctaQ]

could be decent, bridgelux is a decent brand but they also sell thier dies ( about 50% of the substance/ quality of the led) to chinese manufactures who put their own phosphor mixes(the other 50%), one way they tend to jack up the brightness is to make the whites very cool which makes you lose out on a lot of the warmer colors and generally leads to a little bit of a washed out look for some colors. i think they did this here since they claim 14k with 35w and 20b, usually it takes a 1 to 1 mix to get 14k so the whites are probably closer to 10k, after all this trash i just talked about it id still say its pretty powerful for coral growth especially since blues tend to be very efficient (output wise) and powerful for coral growth in terms of spectrum. you could probably get it for cheaper maybe on ebay or something or maybe upgrade to an aquaillumination for not much more money

 

[afboundguy]

Just off the top of my head I would have to say they are probably a little on the lower end without knowing the specific bulbs they are using... My reasoning on this is this: First the ratio for the larger 300W made of 3 watt bulbs is 84:42 for a "14K" look... The mainstream LEDS (Cree) are suggested at using a ratio of 50:50 to 60:40 white:blue depending on the white LEDs you use so that ratio seems way out of whack which leads me to believe they might be lower end bulbs.

The amount of bulbs in a 16" long by 8.5" fixture leads me to believe they are low end LEDS. 378 watts for such a small fixture isn't saving any energy which is a key selling point for LED's. I would need at least 2 of those fixtures for my 55 and don't think the coverage would be enough and that would be 600 watts of lighting... I could use 500 watts for 2 250 MH and use less wattage... Also utilizing mainstream Cree LEDs for a similar size heatsink you could use about 18-24 LED's for those dimensions... So they look like a waste of money and on the cheap end... It screams of a company trying to take advantage of the under educated aquarium hobbiest by utilizing the "LED rave" in lighting... Sorry if I was a little blunt just don't want to see anybody get ripped off

 

[DoctaQ]

diy is definateley better but the (good) options out there for non diy are few, bridgelux dies are decent but its up to the company using them to get the most efficiency out of them, you can get 90w units on ebay for like 250 which are probably about the same..not ideal but a better deal than the blueline.

i agree with dave

 

[loki32687]

My issue is, I can't do DIY and I'd need 3-4 AI fixtures for my tank. I have no electrical knowledge at all.

 

[afboundguy]

The acan lighting systems out there look pretty good... Give some of the sponsor's a call to see if they have them in stock...