Cheap lighting for 150 tall?

I don't know but I am dying to hear what others think about them.
 
Ok, not definitive, but what I have found on the possible spectrographs of white leds indicate that par is created as good as or better than other lighting systems whatever the method used to generate the cool white light in led. You'd have to choose a fluorescent tube with plants in mind to not be worse par than these leds likely.
http://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/nlpip/lightinganswers/led/whiteLight.asp

Now for an apples and oranges comparison the lumen output of one of those 50 watt led arrays is roughly equivalent to a 75 watt t12 or a 54 watt t5 HO fluorescent. Now that is only a very rough comparison and is likely that the fluorescent would still be weaker than the led due to part of the light going in the wrong direction unlike the led.

So those lights would work, and would be concentrated/intense enough to penetrate. The only question is how many would be needed. But you might get some idea from my apples to oranges comparison of them with fluorescent lights. For a very rough comparison to the 4 you think to put over this, would 4x54 watt t5 HO with good reflectors- 212watts over 138 gallons... that's 1.5 wpg, be enough? I'm gonna say it might or might not grow something right under the fixtures and surely won't away from those spots at that lighting level.

You'll need more like 6 of those to grow stuff down low, and even then your coverage might be incomplete.
 
I would just do your research. I remember reading some threads about these and lots of people complained that most didn't last 6 months to a year. It just might be you get what you pay for. That being said, I have no personal experience with these.
 
SnakeIce SnakeIce thanks for posting. I don't think I ever found a hobbyist that was ever satisfied with his lighting. We always want better or think of ways to try and make it better.
 
I am with what I have, but I have done a thorough study of the variables when it comes to how much light is enough and how much creates other issues I don't want. I've set my expectations to coincide with how much work I want to do, and made plant choices that fit those constraints. Perhaps most are not able to get to the level of understanding and self assessment to be happy with their choices. Something ends up not meeting expectations if only because the various elements in their imagined perfect tank don't line up in reality.

Part of it is that wpg is very approximate. To be more accurate the function is not linear, but quadratic, ie there is a curve in the graph of amounts of light that result in equal lighting across the range of tank sizes.
 
Those eBay LED flood lights do look intriguing. Apparently they can be wired with a conventional 120VAC 3-prong plug, with their ~85-230VAC spec.

If low cost is your thing, check out AquaTraders. You can get 48" ~6500K LED strip lights for $45 shipped. Looks like they are about 50watts. You could outfit your 150g with two of them for $90.
 
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