GROBEAM 1000/500 LED's

Hey anybody using these or know anything about them?
Would it be a hole lot better then my two T5 for growing plants.


GROBEAM LED TILE

Cheers

Mark

how big is your tank???

Reason i ask is that the marine verison of these led tiles give a very direct beam of light and in a big tank you would need several units that are very costly.
I know there was talk of TMC changing the lens on the led to give a more dispursed light output but don,t know how far they got with its release. But a more dispursed output will probably weaken the light ability to get to the bottom of your tank if you have a deep tank

Ah thanks for the reply Gerry the tank is a Fluval Osaka two foot by two foot..

Mark

I love the Fluval Osaka tank, would love to see a marine verison with sump etc.I have no experience with the Grobeam freshwater lights, have 6 of the strips on my marine tank so not much help to you but you are right to check it out before you purchase the lights as i am guessing they are just as expensive as the marine verisons.

There €300 Gerry so im not going to jump in just yet.i'd really love to see one up and running but i dont think many people are using them.

I had a look at the marine one on the go and it looks amazing with the shimmer

iv never seen a freshwater setup with lights that give the shimmer is it the same i wonder?

mark

In commercial shops they are starting to use the next generation LEADs (the earlier types were pretty crappy in comparison to what is visible now)If you leave the light on for 12 hours the pay back time is 2.5years in private house holds the lights say on for only 4 or 5 hours a day no the return its too long. In an aquarium however you have i ton for 12-14 hours a day, so it should pay back provided you are buying them from electrical wholesale type place, and aquarium brand would be far too expensive. I bought a 2 foot LED cool white, as an experience it cost about 70 euros, all you have to to is unscrew the starter choke, and replace the fluorescent tube. img.diytrade.com/cdimg/667254/8130114/0/...Fluorescent_Tube.jpg

Aquatic plants like to grow under natural sun light (approx 5600kelvin) a warm white fluorescent tube is about 4,000Kelvin and a cool white is about 6,000Kelvin, a shop window metal halide with brilliant white light is around 10,000K. marine blue white is 12000K an actinic blue is 14000K So who cares!!! well LED warm white is only around 2,000K and cool white is 3000K, so its not the saving of eclectic that's that interesting is the fact the skiming brown and greek league ORPLANTS don t like this colour temp hence for fish only marine tanks or african lake tanks where you want a clean looking fish only tank its perfect for not growing plants/algae.

I had pretty decent success with a pair of Grobeam 500s. Would I recommend them?... Only if the money is burning a pretty big hole in your pocket.

I'm using them at the minute for my 4 foot jewel 240. They replaced a t5 luminaire I have (Which is for sale). I bought them for the shimmer effect and dimming on and off of the units. I have 2 GROBEAM LED TILEs and 3 aquabeam 500s. Cost me around a thousand euro.

here's a pic of them in use

Sean i didn't know half of that about led's thanks for sharing and great job on that bulb whats the light off it like? any good for plants..

Wolfsberg do you get the shimmer with the 500s

Ted how deep is your tank and the grobeam must be good for plants because your's looks very healthy and the tank looks amazing

Would you think id get the shimmer at a two foot depth?

Thanks Lads

Mark

ps sorry for all the questions:blush:

dickiedocker wrote:

Sean i didn't know half of that about led's thanks for sharing and great job on that bulb whats the light off it like? any good for plants..

Wolfsberg do you get the shimmer with the 500s

Ted how deep is your tank and the grobeam must be good for plants because your's looks very healthy and the tank looks amazing

Would you think id get the shimmer at a two foot depth?

Thanks Lads

Mark

ps sorry for all the questions:blush:

My tank is between 1-2 foot in dept. While light output to me looks weaker than the t5's the plants are growing just as well. I had a total of 216watts of light from the t5's and only have 96watts of led lighting. So I'd say I had high light with the t5's and medium light output from the led's. That suits me just fine as I have less maintenence to do. From what I've read the lights from the leds can punch their light far deeper down than T5. The simmer looks stunning and the fish appreciate the morning evening dimming of the lights. Its amazing watching the fish getting ready for lights out and seeing the more timid fish coming out to play before lights off. With the t5's I couldnt dim the lights so the fish got shocked slightly every on off of the lights.

Wow Ted im surprised theres not as much light as your T5s because of the amount of LEDs you have.
i would of thought 2grobeam tiles would of done a four foot tank.

Have you got the storm function aswell whats that like

id love to see your tank have you any vids on utube?

Thanks Ted

Mark

dickiedocker wrote:

Wow Ted im surprised theres not as much light as your T5s because of the amount of LEDs you have.
i would of thought 2grobeam tiles would of done a four foot tank.

Have you got the storm function aswell whats that like

id love to see your tank have you any vids on utube?

Thanks Ted

Mark

Well you dont need as much wattage of led light compared to t5 lights to get the desired output. Leds are more efficent at producing light. Two tiles to me is not enough to cover my 4 foot tank. The storm function to me is just a gimmick and I've bearly used it. If your Photosensitive I'd say its dangerous. I have no video camera I'm afraid.

Ok Ted i understand now.
I was thinking that storm function would frighting the life out of the fish. bit of a gimmick all right

Thanks for the reply Ted

Mark

ted30 wrote:

dickiedocker wrote:

Wow Ted im surprised theres not as much light as your T5s because of the amount of LEDs you have.
i would of thought 2grobeam tiles would of done a four foot tank.

Have you got the storm function aswell whats that like

id love to see your tank have you any vids on utube?

Thanks Ted

Mark

Well you dont need as much wattage of led light compared to t5 lights to get the desired output. Leds are more efficent at producing light. Two tiles to me is not enough to cover my 4 foot tank. The storm function to me is just a gimmick and I've bearly used it. If your Photosensitive I'd say its dangerous. I have no video camera I'm afraid.

Hi Ted, can you give more details on how you control your light output, equipment used etc. i take it it is the Aquaray controller you use??

If so is it easy to use and program, what functions are on the controller??

Cheers

Jeff

gerryberry wrote:

Hi Ted, can you give more details on how you control your light output, equipment used etc. i take it it is the Aquaray controller you use??

If so is it easy to use and program, what functions are on the controller??

Cheers

Jeff

Yes I use the aquaray controllers for the grobeam 1000 tiles but not for the aquabeam 500's. Photoperiod is 9 hours.
2 Grobeam 1000 tiles: on at 1pm, full power reached at 2pm, dimming starts at 9pm, off at 10pm
1st two aquabeams 500: on at 2pm, off 9pm
3rd aquabeam 500: on at 3pm, off 5:30pm (Midday burst)
Aquabeam 500s have socket timers (no control of dimming or other features). Power controllers provide built in timer, dimming, moonlight and the storm function. it's very easy to program the controllers. If you can set times on an electronic timer the power controller will pose no problems. I wanted the dimming feature so the fish didnt get shocked every time the lights came on and off. Features missing that I'd like: timing of moonlight and a cloudy feature. The Moon light feature I hardly used because theres no way to time it to go off say at midnight. I'd like a cloudy feature say to dim the lights for a few hours say mondays and thursdays.

Im going to go with the 500twin i just found out you can fit them to your own light housing



Has anyone fitted some like this?


Mark