Current Satellite Plus Pro LED lights...any experience with these?

[Jennifer G.]

Heya,

I will be setting up some tanks after Christmas (3 10's and a 20 long) and purchased some Current Satellite Plus Pro LED's for each of them. I was wondering if anyone has any experience with them. Will they be able to grow "high light" plants (with CO2) with a 12-13" water/substrate depth or are they more of a low-medium light set up? Was also wondering if there was a magic number setting wise (intensity 1-100) where say set to 78 all is fine but set at 79 it's an algae fest?

I went with the "Plus Pro's" due to the fact they have built in timers and plan on having them run 7-8 hours.

Thanks in advance for your time

 

[FreshyFresh]

I've had my Current Satellite LED+ 48"-60" for over 2yrs now and it runs ~8hrs/day with a lamp timer. This fixture keeps the crypts, swords, anubia and java ferns growing nicely in my 55g. I do not add ferts or CO2.

Glancing at the specs on Current-USA site for the "pro" fixtures, they have higher wattage ratings on them. Almost double what the standard LED+ fixtures use. I know this is only a piece of the puzzle, but generally speaking, if the LED fixture consumes more watts, it can throw more energy at the plants.

 

[Jennifer G.]

I've had my Current Satellite LED+ 48"-60" for over 2yrs now and it runs ~8hrs/day with a lamp timer. This fixture keeps the crypts, swords, anubia and java ferns growing nicely in my 55g. I do not add ferts or CO2.

Glancing at the specs on Current-USA site for the "pro" fixtures, they have higher wattage ratings on them. Almost double what the standard LED+ fixtures use. I know this is only a piece of the puzzle, but generally speaking, if the LED fixture consumes more watts, it can throw more energy at the plants.

Thank you for the input FreshyFresh Just trying to figure out if I will be able to grow the demanding carpet plants and have some punches of reds

 

[dougall]

I have a plus, not the pro, over a 10g tank... I would say it's fairly low light.

Not sure how much the light improved with the pro.

But give it a try

 

[Jennifer G.]

I have a plus, not the pro, over a 10g tank... I would say it's fairly low light.

Not sure how much the light improved with the pro.

But give it a try

Ok, so I found a Model Comparison chart of all 3 of their models. Seems the Plus Pro model (per the company) is much more powerful than the other 2. 100 PAR at 12" as opposed to 35+ and 15+...I watched a video of Cory (Aquarium Co-op) review it with a PAR meter (calibrated for LED's) on a 12" tank. His readings showed a PAR of 75. Not sure if the company ran the tests filled with water or not, Cory did.

All in all I'm sure this light will grow plants...trick is going to be dialing it in to grow more plants than algae

 

[Saltydad]

I have the Current Satellite Plus/Pro (24”) on my 20 long. Found it OK for low light plants but not for others. I added a Finnex 30” Fugray Planted Plus. Plants look great! No co2, use Excel, Flourish, Trace; eco complete substrate.

 

[Jennifer G.]

I have the Current Satellite Plus/Pro (24”) on my 20 long. Found it OK for low light plants but not for others. I added a Finnex 30” Fugray Planted Plus. Plants look great! No co2, use Excel, Flourish, Trace; eco complete substrate.

I set up my 10 gallon 5 weeks ago with the Current Sat pro+. Co2 is hooked up as of yesterday but haven't fired it up yet. I'm using ADA aquasoil in this tank and it has completely wiped out my gh and kh, both now reading 0. Ph is reading a steady 6.6 now (tap is 7.6). I'm new with aquariums so I'm unsure if the 0 kh with added co2 will crash the ph or not. I've been trying to find answers but I'm coming up empty handed so far.

The first 2 weeks nearly EVERY plant melted. Any stems that turned to mush I removed and salvaged anything that looked like it may pull through. Things are looking much better. Running my lights at 50%, dosing ADA step 1 (micros), Seachem iron and nitrogen. Starting to see itty bitty teeny weeny leaves on my HC cuba. Hoping things continue to progress in the direction things seem to be going in. Really want to be successful with planted aquariums as I understand the more natural and true the environment for the fish is, the better it is for them.

 

[FreshyFresh]

Jennifer, sorry if this has been covered, but are you new to tanks with plants? A 10g is always going to be a challenge in this area IMO. It's a very small footprint and volume of water. When things go wrong in terms of water chemistry, they go FAST for smaller volumes or water. Couple that with a small area to stage plants makes things extra challenging.

Also, IMO, store bought lights for a 10g are not going to have the intensity needed given their small size for this footprint. You can make them work by doubling them up, or doing your own lighting, but right out of the box, most will be ineffective (IMO).

I had great success with a planted 10g using a standard aqueon incandescent 2-bulb strip light, that I fitted with two 10watt CFLs. FloraMax substate and various "easy" plants.

Even with an ideal setup and lighting, what you discovered with plants melting and whatnot is very common with newly planted tanks. You just have to prune, maintain and wait it out.

Here is a pic from when I had my 10g setup:

 

[Jennifer G.]

Jennifer, sorry if this has been covered, but are you new to tanks with plants? A 10g is always going to be a challenge in this area IMO. It's a very small footprint and volume of water. When things go wrong in terms of water chemistry, they go FAST for smaller volumes or water. Couple that with a small area to stage plants makes things extra challenging.

Also, IMO, store bought lights for a 10g are not going to have the intensity needed given their small size for this footprint. You can make them work by doubling them up, or doing your own lighting, but right out of the box, most will be ineffective (IMO).

I had great success with a planted 10g using a standard aqueon incandescent 2-bulb strip light, that I fitted with two 10watt CFLs. FloraMax substate and various "easy" plants.

Even with an ideal setup and lighting, what you discovered with plants melting and whatnot is very common with newly planted tanks. You just have to prune, maintain and wait it out.

Here is a pic from when I had my 10g setup:

Yes, I'm new to planted tanks and aquariums in general. I set up a 5 gallon last October and this 10 gallon February 3rd. I lost the pogostemon helferi and most of the bacopa bonsai (was able to salvage 3 tiny bonsai tips that pushed roots out and replanted). I have 2 other 10 gals, a 15, a 20 long, 2 30 breeders and a 34 gal I have yet to start up. The original 5 gal I tore down yesterday. Had a major diatom problem. After testing my tap water came to find tap comes out with 7.8 ppm silicates. I have since started pretreating my water with phosguard in 2 55 gal totes I have in my garage for water changes. Never saw diatoms again...however...I did get long green hair algae. When that went away I was hit with blue green algae that I treated with chemiclean. Immediately following that I got black beard algae on my dwarf hair grass and a weird matching black sheeting algae that covered my substrate. I was doing 50% water changes weekly, ammonia nitrite and nitrates were always 0, sometimes I would read 5 ppm of nitrates but only after ferting. Not sure if all those problems were due to tank size or my inexperience with lighting/co2 duration, ferting or lack of ferting or what. Will see what happens with the 10 LOL

 

[Jennifer G.]

Here's the tank 5 weeks later