I have the 48" unit, and started with one bulb. I had new plants that weren't doing anything at all, and thru this forum quickly realized that my ancient bulb was the culprit....and on the surface liked the idea of LED from energy consumption.
The amount of light output from one white bulb was drastically improved over the previous stuff, though I still doubted it would be a long term benefit to the plants. I bought another white bulb and a colormax bulb to fill the unit and my plants have been doing great (the golden lloydiella still seems a bit stunted comparatively, but I think one of the fish was going after the roots thinking they were blackworms).
Here is the technical info a rep from Aqueon emailed me when I inquired (end of March):
These are actually very new. They have not made it onto our website yet and apparently PetSmart’s either. Check with
www.marineandreef.com they have all the sizes and all of the replacement tubes. There are other sites but that one comes to mind right away.
They are 9000K. Two tubes will give you 27 PAR when measured at 12” from the bulbs. If you use all 3 tubes then you will get 41 PAR (at 12” from bulb).
Regards,
Rob Moneyhan
Central Aquatics Tech Lead
Kent Marine, Coralife, Aqueon, Oceanic, Zilla, Super Pet
Phone# 888-255-4527 or 414-423-8544
Fax# 800-398-0396 or 414-421-9682
Email:
rmoneyhan@central.com
Hope this helps.