I want to build a tank featuring a display scrubber but I don't want it to be red. Are there any good led's for a scrubber that look relatively normal and still give good growth?
I want to build a tank featuring a display scrubber but I don't want it to be red. Are there any good led's for a scrubber that look relatively normal and still give good growth?
Look for warm white or florence colors.
LEDs are famous for narrow bandwidth. White ones have mostly blue spectrum and some red and green. That said using white LEDs for growth purposes is very unefficient. Warm whites are best as have more red than other whites.
I'd use warm white CFLs if I wanted it to look good in a display. They use more energy, but probably would give better growth the warm white LEDs.
Let me correct that, white LEDs have one of the BROADEST spectrums out of any light source, much more broad than any CFL, T5, or MH light. Only colored LEDs have a narrow bandwidth.
Image shows Cree Cool/Neutral/Warm white LEDs vs a Phoenix 14k Metal Halide.
My first attempt at using LEDs on a scrubber I used warm whites, and it used 1/2 the power and got about 2x the growth than I did with 26w 2700k CFLs. It still doesn't compare to using Red/Blue LEDs, but I completely understand not wanting to use Red/Blue if it is visible in the room.
Just stolen that chart, cheers Ace
I am definately going to use LED's for this one instead of cfl's. This will be a 15(food unit) screen on display in a LFS for customers. I am going to build it so that you can see the screen from both sides between strips of LED's. I wanted to make sure that people have had success with warm white. I will make the fixture dimmable and go a little overkill so that I can adjust it to the mximum amount of light without burning. Thanks for the great answer ace.
I'd still think about throwing some 660 reds in there along with the WW, even if it makes the light a little bit pink. You can see from the spectrum graph that the vast majority of the WW light is not in the useful spectrum for photosynthesis.
This is my 'white' LED harvest....
vs my Red/Blue LED harvest. It is about double the amount of algae, but both are what I consider 'good growth', especially when compared to CFLs.
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