LED Lighting

I am starting this thread to follow on from this thread as I don't want a discussion about LEDs in general in a review of a specific LED light.

From chris231

just bought one of the interpet versions the box lists as 4,7 watt led unit to replace a 15 watt fluorescent.Tube with led light being much brighter iam hoping that it will at least be equal if not brighter than before ,(certainly seems a lot brighter on a demo version in shop ) will fit it all in this week and post the results as a comparison 

I  think all of this stuff about PAR etc. is only really useful if you want a high tech aquascaped aquarium with difficult plants. From my experience, all "normal" plants will grow perfectly well with "normal" lighting.

Over the longer term I am considering changing my tanks over to LED. With 10 tanks running, nine with fluorescent tubes on 10 hours a day, the cost in electricity is not inconsiderable. From my research, it seems that the electricity consumption of LED lights providing an approximately equal light output to a fluorescent tube is about 25%. By using low cost LED lights, of which many are available these days, the payback time would be quite short. I am looking at the long flexible strips which were originally made for lighting inside cars but which can be cut to any length required. As only low voltages are involved, there is no danger from water etc.

However, as the power source for LED lighting is always built in to the plug, I assume that they have to be unplugged or switched off at the socket or they will continue to use electricity even if the lights are not on.

The problem I have is that, because of the number of tanks, I have to use extension leads and the timers I have seen are all too wide to fit.

An electrician would be horrified by the number of extension leads I use anyway, though as fish tank stuff is pretty low wattage, it shouldn't really be a problem. However, the tanks are spread out such that the cables from the lights are always too short to reach one extension lead and all have to be attached to different leads.

In my sitting room I have 5 tanks each with lighting, heater and filter, so that's 15 items to plug in, plus two "reserve" filters that I keep running in the biggest ones as insurance against filter failure in any tank. Then I have a TV, cable box, dvd player, computer, monitor, modem, printer and telephone. 25 items in total to be plugged in the one room, plus the occasional extra.

I guess that having one or two big tanks rather than several small ones does have the advantage that there are less things to plug in.

I'm actually not bothered about timers since I like to look in the tanks and check everything is OK when I go to switch off the lights. If I went for LED lighting I'd swap more of my extension leads for individually switched ones, which I already use in one case.

Actually