who's happy with their eBay LED fixtures? [Archive]

mark

11-11-2011, 05:27 PM

have 2x250W MH with 2x54W T5 actinics on a 145g. Been thinking for awhile LED and now after getting a broken MH bulb in the mail more so. Though Radion and SOLs are nice, more than I want to spend so thinking the eBay route.

Experiences, good deals, places to stay away from?

monocus

11-11-2011, 05:49 PM

i've tried a number of them.stay away from 1 watt leds or the wheat bulb leds.i did get a couple of good deals on a 3 watt led fixture-one 20" and the other 48".only checked out the smaller one as i'm using the 48 for my aptasia.the smaller one has the same par as an vertex illuminlux-cost $ 68 compared to $300-and i didn't have to make my own mounting clips

Myka

11-11-2011, 05:50 PM

Seeing as this is in the reef forum, cheap LEDs are absolutely worthless on anything other than a nano imo. Even then I'm not sure they would be overly useful - depends on the corals kept I suppose.

mark

11-11-2011, 06:41 PM

Seeing as this is in the reef forum, cheap LEDs are absolutely worthless on anything other than a nano imo. Even then I'm not sure they would be overly useful - depends on the corals kept I suppose.

not cheaping out completely but thinking maybe around the $600 range (comparable to a couple of new MH pendants) rather than $1600 for the Radions

Reefer Rob

11-11-2011, 06:48 PM

If you're wanting cheap, lots of people seem to be happy with the Aquastyle kits. Not the best LEDs, but they seem to work. Make sure you upgrade the kit to Mean Well drivers.

I just ordered a 28 LED kit from Rapid LED, a little more money, but it comes with Cree LEDs.

toytech

11-11-2011, 11:49 PM

Im happy with my aquastyle leds , ya i get that the par and efficiency are less than crees but for $265 i got 50 3 watt leds ,heatsink, fans ,wire ,hanging kit, drivers .

The Grizz

11-12-2011, 03:30 AM

No thought of doing a DIY? Yes it can be a little more then the cheap Ebay LED's but a lot cheaper then name brand and just as good if not better.

kien

11-12-2011, 04:40 AM

Talk to Dez. Or better yet, drive over to his house. He's rocking eBay LEDs over his rockin tank :-)

granitereef

11-12-2011, 05:37 AM

If you have a chance to go in to Red coral
Edmonton check out the DIY led over Steves jbj tank (next to his tub of live rock)
I bought it and built it for around $180. It is 36 bridgelux 3 watt LEDs on a 12" x 7" heat sink.
I had no soldering experience going in to it and found the build to be relatively easy. Pm me if you have any questions. I'd be glad to help you with the build if that was the route you want to take.

Shaun

gobytron

11-14-2011, 02:50 PM

Seeing as this is in the reef forum, cheap LEDs are absolutely worthless on anything other than a nano imo. Even then I'm not sure they would be overly useful - depends on the corals kept I suppose.

Thats kind of a blanket statement.

Anyone have any specific ebay or cheap LED fixtures they've tried that did or did not work out?

doch

11-14-2011, 03:14 PM

I'm running 2 120W ebay fixtures on my frag tank and everything seems to be doing well. I'm definetly getting better results in my display though. If I was setting up a nano I'd not hesitate to run these. For you tank, I don't think I would.

I'm making the switch to LED on the display and I though about the radions, but went with the AI Sols. Cheaper, and apparenlty better PAR. $1600 for 2 radions... $800 for 2 Sols. Tried and tested.

Madreefer

11-14-2011, 07:45 PM

Seeing as this is in the reef forum, cheap LEDs are absolutely worthless on anything other than a nano imo. Even then I'm not sure they would be overly useful - depends on the corals kept I suppose.

Which ones are you talking about? I assume you've tried them out.

Hustler

11-14-2011, 09:33 PM

Is it that the lights cause alge if they are cheaper? or just not enough light to keep anything alive?
Right now i have a 48" marineland and a 48" reefbright running now and they seem to be doing thier job.....? i would need atleast 6 fixtures to flood it with light but that are still very reasonably priced.
Im still learning with the LEDs and thats what I want over my tank but not in the 2k range anytime soon so Im looking into this as well :)

Lampshade

11-14-2011, 10:09 PM

People generally don't like the 1W fixtures because there's better out there. LED's are weird though, if you put a tight lens on a 1W you could get decent par, just terrible spread. Same with the 3W's, they might not use R5 binned LED's, but you could get decent results in theory with enough lights.

check out
http://marine-engineers.org/reef-par-database-led-fixtures/