+AquaScapeGoat TV haa thanks Artato, stop hiding behind that fake name !.. no genius, just collating information out there that is helpful to our hobby
It's much appreciated! The fake name is for work purposes, both on youtube, and facebook (artato is not my real name either lol) I haven't had a chance to go through all your videos yet but am curious if you have done any studies on aquasoils lifespans against varying degrees of water hardness?
+AquaScapeGoat TV lol, it's wise to be careful about identity I guess. How fast aquasoil breaks down depends on the specific brand of soil... harder granules that have been baked at higher temps last longer than soft ones generally speaking, the former would contain a larger percentage of clay vs peat/organics and would have less buffering capacity and CEC as well. ADA ones are relatively soft. Have not tested this with regards to water hardness though. If it's the buffering capacity you're asking about, then the higher your alkalinity, the faster the aquasoil depletes it's buffering capacity.
Your results speak for themselves! All of your videos are well thought out, concise and informative. Beginners to the hobby like myself are incredibly lucky to have guys like you sharing your experience and knowledge with us! Thanks!!
Hi Mr. Dennis Wong. I’ve been listening to your videos for the past 3 years. Your presentations on otherwise very complicated scientific concepts/topics are detailed yet very through. I just cannot express enough gratitude for your sharing your scientific knowledge on u tube. I indulge in these scientific details so much!! Your videos are so informative they give life to inanimate aquarium equipment (lights , substrate, fertilizers, CO 2, etc..). After your videos and carefully reading articles on your website, everything now makes perfect sense! I am now able to grow delicate/advanced plants as well troubleshoot imbalances in my aquarium. I am truly inspired and sincerely hoping that you could post more videos. Thank you Tatiana
This video is very technical. It will either make you smarter or dumber. Very nice. I love how you helped with my misconceptions for years that green spectrum is useless. Thanks
Most also add the linke were incredibly helpful. The barrreport on ADA lightning at Aqua Forest regarding PAR was also very insightful and inline with the data driven conclusion.
Dennis, I appreciate the way you present information in your videos. I always tell people to check out your content and subscribe. I look forward to the next video.
+Tyler Volk Thanks man, did you manage to sort out the issue with the AR ? Quite a number of people have issues with it, while other times it seem pretty easy going. Hard to narrow down the main casual factors. I think it is more sensitive to substrate issues than other plants, but haven't tested this conclusively
+Dennis Wong. No, unfortunately I never did. I ended up cutting my losses and focusing on the plants which are already growing well. I will however give it another go sometime in the future under different conditions. It's a beautiful plant.
Super ultra cool video! But honestly - the old school aquarists know that any light will grow plants as long as it is strong enough. "Strong enough" in the old days meant light that is "medium" today. Also the old bulbs did have more red than blue or green so the old tanks looked dim to the eye but apparently, from what I learned in this video, were indeed just fine to grow plants as far as spectrum is concerned.
Beautiful, just beautiful man! This is exactly what everyone needed to hear. Well said! This helps me realize that my DIY LED build that I want to do will be more than enough light. If I could find some lenses for the E-series that would help out too. It has 120 degree spread, but the temperature also kind of stinks, it is really blue, and not very bright. I know your eye can get used to it, but we both know it doesn't look as good for certain plants. the ADA PAR is very interesting. I have told people that PAR doesn't necessarily matter, and that plants use more than two wavelengths. This just solidifies it even more. Peace!
+ADU Aquascaping Thanks man ~ the problem with Ecoxotic is that as an RGB + white fixture, it still lacks color rendering at the cyan and yellow/orange portions. It's the lack of orange/warm tones that we notice more - it affects the color rendering of red/orange plants. I'm supposed to cover this in the next vid ha... RGB + white doesn't mean it covers all ground
Interesting, maybe I should add some cyan to my fixture. Just a couple royal blues, and a couple cyans- and with no lenses just for good rendering. everyone keeps saying that if I add cyan and royal blue to not add lenses, so it makes sense. And the PAR calculator I am using says that with the amount of LEDs I have and dimensions of my tank that the PAR will be 150 umol at 30" of depth! LOL I am going to use a dual dimmer, so that should help out, so I don't have too much light.
Commenting on a 6 year old video to beg you to PLEASE WRITE A BOOK! I WOULD BUY IT IMMEDIATELY! I love the science aspect of aquariums, and the only hard science book I could find is Diana Walstead's Ecology of the Planted Aquarium.
Thank you for another really informative video! Last year I started to doubt about light spectrum absorbed by plants (only red and blue), so I also started to research and come to conclusion that the information is false, even though it is taught in schools. So I made some light fixtures with a "cheap but quality" LED lights from china (LED COB 3W) as these are made by the new technology for making LEDs and are really efficient. I have made 2 platforms: Warm White LEDs and color LEDs (410nm, 450nm, 520nm, 590nm, 630nm, 660nm). The color platform made my plants look really nice and colorful where as the Warm White platform was mainly used to provide enough light for plant growth. Plants started to grow really differently than under T8 lights and they were changing their colors to really nice ones (before they were very pale, monotone...). But after some time I came across "green algae attack". I was then really frustrated about the "attack" and I started finding the solution. Because I had tested a lot of LEDs before I came across "COB LEDs" I had some LED strips laying around that I mounted on my smaller aquarium. I used 3 strips Warm White, Cold White and Pink(combination of red and blue LEDs). And there wasn't any algae growth at all, all the "plants" (mosses and 1 plant) have been growing extremely well, but efficiency of LED strips isn't as good as the "COB LEDs" so they are shining much less even though they are consuming the same amount of power (low efficiency due to poor LED chips, resistive copper PCB, bad heat transfer, cooling...). So I made recently another platform of COB LEDs and Warm White and Cold White LEDs were used. The algae started to grow less vigorously and the plants finally started to "breathe" because they weren't covered with algae. Warm White and Cold White LEDs have specific spectrum hue that differs: Warm White: more red spectrum, Cold White: more blue spectrum. You can also google for the spectrum (of course my Chinese LEDs don't have really precise one, but Warm White and Cold White LEDs have a specific spectrum even when different quality LEDs are compared). I hope that I have finally nailed the spectrum for my aquarium so I start to upgrade my fertilization methods to grow plants even better and more healthy as you (Dennis Wong) demonstrated in the videos. I must say that for a 120liter/30gallon tank I was using before LED upgrade two T8 lights that consumed together 36W and the aquarium wasn't as bright event with the reflectors than now that I use LED lighting. I use 18W of Warm and Cold White "COB LEDs" (each LED consumes 3W at 10V,300mA) and for 12W Color platform I use some color LEDs from eBay claiming 3W, but I run them at lower voltage to prolong their life so each consumes 1W -> 12LEDs. With 30W of LEDs I now have much brighter, colorful and "happy" aquarium that I had with 36W of T8 lights. I am now consuming less power, the plants grow better and look better, and I am making less impact on environment by not using T8 lights that use harmful gasses :) So to conclude I have found out that with using LEDs you can make your tank lighting really efficient and because using different LED colors you can make your plants really colorful with some colors that the plants never before had.
+ZiGa:S yup, for T5s there is also a wide range of colored tubes, but they cost quite a bit and aren't as efficient as LEDs. Mixing colors to get better color rendition for plants is definitely the way to go - in the past when LED technology was not so cheap/widespread, fewer commercial fixtures offered a good mix of colored LEDs, so many of the older aqua-scapers stuck to their T5s. The trend has changed very quickly in the past couple of years though. Our eyes are very sensitive to different shades of color, so yes, we will notice small differences in color even if the difference is very small. (even if the spectrum chart of 2 bulbs look almost exactly the same).
Hey Dennis, been watching all your videos. Most of them repeatedly to really have it ingrained in my memory. I wonder if you can do a video on the importance of good flow and how best to achieve it on common tank sizes. I feel flow is an important part of planted tanks that we do not get too much information on.
+rustilldown7 haa thanks for the support. yup, still haven't done that one... Odd dimension tanks have more trouble with it. For larger tanks, small supplementary pumps solves the problems quite easily in most cases
Hi Mr Dennis I have ai prime HD with blue 20 green 90 red 90 cool white 20 and warm white 15 but my monte carlo isn't carpeting at all.I do ei dosing and the light is 22 inch above substrate. Full pressurized co2 and dosing extra iron and potassium .
This explains why my DA FSPEC fixture wasn't giving nearly as good of colors as my Finnex PP 24/7 CC despite having similar PAR ratings. The Finnex just has a better spectrum.
Hi Dennis, this maybe a 5 years ago video, I would like to seek yr advise based on yr explanation all 3 colours red, blue, & green are accepted by plants for photosynthesis. If I have an LED lights that allows me to control the percentage of R,G, & B, (example Chihiros WRGB2), how should I set the percentage to the respective RGB in order to maximise the plants growth and health?
Can you tell me this.. My plants photosynthesis under LED lights which has some red and blue spectrum along with White... so my the plants are photosynthesising which means the light and CO2 are effectively communicating?? Or is there more than the eye can see??
+ADU Aquascaping haa... I used 20w 2700k philips warm white CFLs, though the camera white balance makes it less yellow than it is.... the low K rating bulbs have much better reds, no idea why they aren't more popular. My favorite bulb for lamps now is the 3000k 14w LED that fits the E27 base on the desklamp as well. It's a bit less yellow than the 2700k warm white CFL
haha, we are all living a lie! I hope to build an LED setup, and was planning on doing cool white and warm white at a 2:1. And then add in a few royal blues. I have all the plans ready to go, but still fear what it will look like. Everyone keeps saying that is the standard mix. I just don't want it to be too yellow, or too green. And they keep saying not to use any Red LEDs because it will give the Disco look, so I imagine the warm whites will allow red plants to look good?
+ADU Aquascaping Is that what people are saying ? I think reds add good saturation to the reds. The disco look might be a problem for DIYers. Hence BML has their diffuser that works quite well - there is little visible disco effect in the tank, even in their red/white fixtures, not to mention the multi-colored dutch. I think that overly strong blue without red to balance out will wash out colors
I might as well just order a couple blues, a couple cyans, and a couple reds. I am going to use solderless Cree XT-Es. So, I can easily play around with the configuration.
+sirbreakemstuff Use more Co2 and light, better to place it directly under the lighting fixture... and slightly lower nitrates to bring out the red; not a very picky plant otherwise
Thank you for such a good informative video about basic lighting. I'm new to keeping fish & shrimps as well as aquatic plants. Light is crucial to plant growth but how many hours should you keep your lights on? With my orchids I give them 12 hours in the winter. My guess is aquatic plants also need the same hours. But how will 12 hours of lighting affect aquatic animals?
heh thanks... planted tanks in general can get by with far less; tanks do very well with as low as 5hours of light and 7-10 hours is the common range. Many people run less hours in a bid to reduce algae growth. Lighting doesn't affect aquatic creatures much, except in cases where dawn/dusk settings affect spawning behaviour
Dennis yes you can outsource. Go to Fiverr and find a video editor gig. Some can help you edit as low as $10. I have used fiverr before to help me my school assignment lol
I thought the number of photons produced by a light is proportional to the current and the surface area of the filament being lit, therefore the metal halide would produce more lumens overall and is stronger than a desk lamp?
+Brandon C. A high wattage metal halide does produce more photons than a desk lamp. That's what I meant in the video. But if the spectrum of the two lamps are identical, the photons will be the same except for the MH producing a large quantity
+John C I like them a lot... I have a few of them. They're very efficient & high PAR with good mix of colored LEDs; so pretty good color rendering. The color controllable unit is hard to beat; I'll probably get that next. That being said - I still prefer some of the T5 spectrum mixes, even in my own tanks I mix the Dutch BML with a warm white fluorescent lamp to get a better range of orange/red tones.
Very nice, I was looking into the color controllable unit as well. Too bad they don't make any plugin controllers that will work for earlier versions. I have used both T5 HO and buildmyled on different occasions on one of my planted tanks and I think they both work equally as well, the only down side I can see from buildmyled is that if you don't have the intensity adjusted just right then you will have an overgrowth of algae. Oh...one more thing, do you have any opinion on their timer system? good unit to have for planted tanks? (gradual sun up and down)
+John C I have not tried their timer system so far ? So can't say much. I have another light with such a system, and I find it nice to have, but hardly essential. But I do like to have at least 2 tiers of lighting though - say dawn/dusk before switching onto full lights mode. I find fish behave differently during dawn/dusk period and have a wider range of behaviour with the 2 tier lighting. Also nice to see aquascapes in different light modes
Great presentation and spectacular planted tanks. One question, though. What are those "growth lamps" for? How do they help growth and are they just gimmicks? Thanks!
ha it depends on the quality of the lamps. Generally grow lamps look pinkish as they contain spikes in red/blue, this can help pigmentation in colored plants so they can be useful - I would never use a pure white fixture myself
Thank you, very informative! What led light bar would you recommend for a 10gallon (20lx12hx10w) with a carpet of HC and some rotala? Something in the Finnex line or should I look for alternatives? Thanks for your help!
So, with your experience what kind is the best light to use in a planted tank (equating the cost of the fixture)? Personally what kind of light do you use in your tanks?
hi dennis great video, what do you think about "siesta" schedule for lights on? they say it can prevent algae issues? What is you lightning schedule? thanks
Nice video. Thanks. But I have 600L planted tank. Can I use this type of led ? LED wattage 40 W. Luminous flux 3610Lm Efficacy 100 Lm/W Color temperature 6500K CRI Ra>80
Seems like Ikea recently changed the rating on the Tertial Desk lamp from 60W to 13W. I had a 23W CFL lightbulb and was a bit worried about it exceeding the rating. Have you had any problems with overheating with the old Tertial lamp? Thanks ahead.
+Melvin ong I use 2700k ones mostly. Nowadays I use a 3000k Phillips LED bulb that screws into the same E27 base; can be bought at NTUCs and hardware shops
+Dennis Wong I see have the 2700k bulb from IKEA won't it look very orange ? :) but I do see the significant growth after using just 4 days :) .... Having a little green algae problem on my netted riccia :(
+Melvin ong yes it does look very orange. I think depend on your room setup and personal taste, it may be too yellow. Many other people prefer the whiter 6500k daylight bulbs. Either should work fine growth wise
Hi Dennis, I saw a photo of one of your tanks somewhere on the internet. It was a large tank with one long strip of high powered led chips. The colours were red, blue and white. It was very high above the tank which is why I figure they are at least 3 watts each or more. Do you have the make and model of this light? My tank is 120cm long and 66cm tall. I am struggling to find an LED lighting unit that will penetrate that depth. I want high light as I run Co2 and EI dose and want to grow light demanding plants in there. I'd love to know where you got your light from
Yes that is it there! I just emailed them. I really want that light it looks amazing. Love you plants too. Thanks so much. I hope they post to New Zealand.
thanks ~ BML no longer sell aquarium fixtures ! they switched their business strategy to focus purely on horticulture units... this unit was amongst the last batch they made. Perhaps try finding a custom LED builder; I haven't found a substitute for BML yet too
Dennis Wong plz the detail of the leds you are using. there watts n colour. are they cob ? how many white red n blue ? what is the size of ur tank? if possible plz post pic of or led. thanks.
Dennis I got a build my led xb dutch light for my new build and everything grew great, even at 100% intensity and only around 6 inches from my light. everything started stunting almost immediately after I started dosing ei. I assume it was from too much light. I bought a hanging kit but don't know how high I should mount above the tank? any ideas? I have elevated areas where my plants grow about 6 to 8 inches from the surface
+fsu23 Hmm I've ran tanks with twice that amount of light with few issues, sunlight is 2000 PAR... our aquarium fixtures generally don't get anywhere near. One cause I can think of is that as tanks get more crowded, especially if you're having very dense growth is that CO2/nutrient needs increase quite a bit as the tank grows in (and there can be circulation issues with very dense growth), sometimes we need to tune our variations as the tank changes, what works super well at the start may not work as well as growth pattern changes.
+Dennis Wong well in terms of growth not much more has occurred even plants I had under 2/t5s in a diff tank just died pretty quickly. I've turned up my co2 but I've reached a point where plants still were not improving and my amano shrimp were nearly dying. I'm trying to get my par to where it is on the ada tanks
+fsu23 Don't think it is lighting related because plants can survive in an extremely wide range... 10ish PAR all the way up to 1000s... best look for other factors
+Dennis Wong well ultimately I think it is the co2. but I found it strange that I was able to grow everything perfectly without ferts, then as soon as I started dosing the wallichi instantly burned up along with my Rotala butterfly. I have heard ferts can speed up the growth of plants causing them to need more co2, but not sure ultimately on the truth of that
+fsu23 Did you dose KCl/potassium chloride? I know running high light/CO2 drives up the need for ferts, else color pales or deficiencies becomes visible. can't say the reverse is true though, and I haven't seen any literature that supports it. I think there can be problems with over-dosing through toxicity of trace/fe etc. But we'd have to dose very high levels consistently to hit that... The thing about ferts/water chemistry/plant health is that sometimes there is a lag between cause and effect, so its hard to draw concrete conclusions until after seeing the repeat event a few times, or doing actions that cause reversible effects.
Dennis, I have a question for you. I currently use a build my led light that I bought from buildmyled.com. my goal is maximum growth and not tank appearance... I bought a 10k xb series led light. This has mostly red, white lights.... they also have other configurations. .... did I buy the right light for what I'm looking to do? or do you think they sell a better light for maximum plant growth??
+supermannnnn Nope, you're there. I have the same light but am looking to get rid of it because I don't fancy the color rendering. They have blue and reds besides the whites, and have very very high PAR values for the wattage draw. Most of the spectrum is in blue/red so you're good if you are just looking for maximum plant growth. Plenty of light even if your tank was 3ft deep
thank you Dennis! !! your the man!! just curious. which light are you planning to switch to?? are you from Singapore? ? do you grow or sell any rare toninas or syngonanthus?? eriocaulons?? ^___^;;
+supermannnnn I have quite a few of the BML models - I use the Dutch, and another custom spectrum one currently. haa I'm from SG, but I don't keep rare plants. The only plant I have that may be considered rare is Eriocaulon Vomit Blood. Our local shops do carry quite a variety of both of those though
This was very good- I am now less confused... shall watch again when I am less drunk...
Ronald Last you are the best Ron!
It did mention advanced lighting, cheers!
The planted tank community needs a person like you! You're a god damn genius. Awesome video.
+AquaScapeGoat TV haa thanks Artato, stop hiding behind that fake name !.. no genius, just collating information out there that is helpful to our hobby
It's much appreciated! The fake name is for work purposes, both on youtube, and facebook (artato is not my real name either lol)
I haven't had a chance to go through all your videos yet but am curious if you have done any studies on aquasoils lifespans against varying degrees of water hardness?
+AquaScapeGoat TV lol, it's wise to be careful about identity I guess. How fast aquasoil breaks down depends on the specific brand of soil... harder granules that have been baked at higher temps last longer than soft ones generally speaking, the former would contain a larger percentage of clay vs peat/organics and would have less buffering capacity and CEC as well. ADA ones are relatively soft. Have not tested this with regards to water hardness though.
If it's the buffering capacity you're asking about, then the higher your alkalinity, the faster the aquasoil depletes it's buffering capacity.
Your results speak for themselves! All of your videos are well thought out, concise and informative. Beginners to the hobby like myself are incredibly lucky to have guys like you sharing your experience and knowledge with us! Thanks!!
Please don’t stop creating videos. I learned so much about it!!! Thank you!
Definitely one of the best videos out there on this stuff
At last... some hard core lighting science! Well done, beautiful references - this is some legit information! Looking forward to more.
Hi Mr. Dennis Wong. I’ve been listening to your videos for the past 3 years.
Your presentations on otherwise very complicated scientific concepts/topics are detailed yet very through. I just cannot express enough gratitude for your sharing your scientific knowledge on u tube. I indulge in these scientific details so much!! Your videos are so informative they give life to inanimate aquarium equipment (lights , substrate, fertilizers, CO 2, etc..). After your videos and carefully reading articles on your website, everything now makes perfect sense! I am now able to grow delicate/advanced plants as well troubleshoot imbalances in my aquarium. I am truly inspired and sincerely hoping that you could post more videos.
Thank you
Tatiana
This video is very technical. It will either make you smarter or dumber. Very nice. I love how you helped with my misconceptions for years that green spectrum is useless. Thanks
Wow! Excellent information!!
Excellent! Yes, please continue the series. Looking forward to fixture discussions.
Nice work Dennis. Very educational, I need to take some more time to try and understand it lol you are light years ahead of me.
This was very good.
Awesome Dennis, thanks. As a new guy to aquascaping , lights have been a big mystery.
And now with that references guys, is how you do a research! Very well explained sir :).
+nam nguyen thanks Nam, waiting for more vids from you ha
Damn, so well explained, thanks a bunch. After seeing this I finally got it. Read so much about it, but never really understood it.
That was hugely helpful, and really well presented. Thank you!
most of the websites providing advice don't even come close to what you have here, thanks for the info. il be doing some mod to my tank soon!
Excellent video - great quality information! I'm very grateful you took the time to do this.
Excellent! Thank you for your in-depth information.
Amazing video! Very clearly explained, I like the data driven explanation! Keep up the good work Dennis
Most also add the linke were incredibly helpful. The barrreport on ADA lightning at Aqua Forest regarding PAR was also very insightful and inline with the data driven conclusion.
Great video! Was more informative than some of the advice on certain aquarium forums
As always, another fascinating and informative video. Thank you Dennis.
+colinbarsby Thanks !
Very informative video. looking forward to watching the next videos. Thank you...
Dennis, I appreciate the way you present information in your videos. I always tell people to check out your content and subscribe. I look forward to the next video.
+Tyler Volk Thanks man, did you manage to sort out the issue with the AR ? Quite a number of people have issues with it, while other times it seem pretty easy going. Hard to narrow down the main casual factors. I think it is more sensitive to substrate issues than other plants, but haven't tested this conclusively
+Dennis Wong. No, unfortunately I never did. I ended up cutting my losses and focusing on the plants which are already growing well. I will however give it another go sometime in the future under different conditions. It's a beautiful plant.
Very nice presentation! Thanks for the vid.
maaan !!! he really knows a lot ! subscribed sir (though Im not smart enough to understand all but understood the basics)
Very informative video, I'm looking forward to the rest of the series. Thank you!
I think you're just making it up as you go.
J/K - good technical info, thanks for sharing.
Excellent video Dennis, very well done. :) Look forward to more !
Well done explanation,thank you
i love you for making this!
Great video, informative and great structured.
Like all of your videos, very helpfull.
please more!
Great info! Makes more sense now.
Super ultra cool video!
But honestly - the old school aquarists know that any light will grow plants as long as it is strong enough. "Strong enough" in the old days meant light that is "medium" today. Also the old bulbs did have more red than blue or green so the old tanks looked dim to the eye but apparently, from what I learned in this video, were indeed just fine to grow plants as far as spectrum is concerned.
That was great!! Very informative, thank you!
great video man. looking forward to see you next video!!!!
+hans chia thanks man, hopefully sooner than later
I always look forward to watching your videos, keep up the good work!
best video on lighting- thanks
Great video!
Thank you for the guide!
Beautiful, just beautiful man! This is exactly what everyone needed to hear. Well said! This helps me realize that my DIY LED build that I want to do will be more than enough light. If I could find some lenses for the E-series that would help out too. It has 120 degree spread, but the temperature also kind of stinks, it is really blue, and not very bright. I know your eye can get used to it, but we both know it doesn't look as good for certain plants. the ADA PAR is very interesting. I have told people that PAR doesn't necessarily matter, and that plants use more than two wavelengths. This just solidifies it even more. Peace!
+ADU Aquascaping Thanks man ~ the problem with Ecoxotic is that as an RGB + white fixture, it still lacks color rendering at the cyan and yellow/orange portions. It's the lack of orange/warm tones that we notice more - it affects the color rendering of red/orange plants. I'm supposed to cover this in the next vid ha... RGB + white doesn't mean it covers all ground
Interesting, maybe I should add some cyan to my fixture. Just a couple royal blues, and a couple cyans- and with no lenses just for good rendering. everyone keeps saying that if I add cyan and royal blue to not add lenses, so it makes sense. And the PAR calculator I am using says that with the amount of LEDs I have and dimensions of my tank that the PAR will be 150 umol at 30" of depth! LOL I am going to use a dual dimmer, so that should help out, so I don't have too much light.
+ADU Aquascaping Hahah but not all persons can withstand the price of that aquarium.
Input, more input! I love it.
THANK u for this help full videos
Commenting on a 6 year old video to beg you to PLEASE WRITE A BOOK! I WOULD BUY IT IMMEDIATELY! I love the science aspect of aquariums, and the only hard science book I could find is Diana Walstead's Ecology of the Planted Aquarium.
awesome god video thanks Denis..
Great video!!
nice work!
holy shit, that was an amazing video, more please !
Thank you for another really informative video!
Last year I started to doubt about light spectrum absorbed by plants (only red and blue),
so I also started to research and come to conclusion that the information is false,
even though it is taught in schools.
So I made some light fixtures with a "cheap but quality" LED lights from china (LED COB 3W)
as these are made by the new technology for making LEDs and are really efficient.
I have made 2 platforms: Warm White LEDs and color LEDs (410nm, 450nm, 520nm, 590nm,
630nm, 660nm). The color platform made my plants look really nice and colorful where as
the Warm White platform was mainly used to provide enough light for plant growth.
Plants started to grow really differently than under T8 lights and they were changing their
colors to really nice ones (before they were very pale, monotone...). But after some time I
came across "green algae attack". I was then really frustrated about the "attack" and I
started finding the solution.
Because I had tested a lot of LEDs before I came across "COB LEDs" I had some LED
strips laying around that I mounted on my smaller aquarium. I used 3 strips Warm White, Cold White
and Pink(combination of red and blue LEDs). And there wasn't any algae growth at all, all the "plants"
(mosses and 1 plant) have been growing extremely well, but efficiency of LED strips isn't as good as
the "COB LEDs" so they are shining much less even though they are consuming the same amount of
power (low efficiency due to poor LED chips, resistive copper PCB, bad heat transfer, cooling...).
So I made recently another platform of COB LEDs and Warm White and Cold White LEDs were used.
The algae started to grow less vigorously and the plants finally started to "breathe" because they
weren't covered with algae.
Warm White and Cold White LEDs have specific spectrum hue that differs:
Warm White: more red spectrum,
Cold White: more blue spectrum.
You can also google for the spectrum (of course my Chinese LEDs don't have really precise one,
but Warm White and Cold White LEDs have a specific spectrum even when different quality LEDs
are compared).
I hope that I have finally nailed the spectrum for my aquarium so I start to upgrade my
fertilization methods to grow plants even better and more healthy as you (Dennis Wong)
demonstrated in the videos.
I must say that for a 120liter/30gallon tank I was using before LED upgrade two T8 lights
that consumed together 36W and the aquarium wasn't as bright event with the reflectors
than now that I use LED lighting. I use 18W of Warm and Cold White "COB LEDs" (each LED
consumes 3W at 10V,300mA) and for 12W Color platform I use some color LEDs from eBay
claiming 3W, but I run them at lower voltage to prolong their life so each consumes 1W -> 12LEDs.
With 30W of LEDs I now have much brighter, colorful and "happy" aquarium that I had with
36W of T8 lights. I am now consuming less power, the plants grow better and look better,
and I am making less impact on environment by not using T8 lights that use harmful gasses :)
So to conclude I have found out that with using LEDs you can make your tank lighting really
efficient and because using different LED colors you can make your plants really colorful
with some colors that the plants never before had.
+ZiGa:S yup, for T5s there is also a wide range of colored tubes, but they cost quite a bit and aren't as efficient as LEDs. Mixing colors to get better color rendition for plants is definitely the way to go - in the past when LED technology was not so cheap/widespread, fewer commercial fixtures offered a good mix of colored LEDs, so many of the older aqua-scapers stuck to their T5s. The trend has changed very quickly in the past couple of years though. Our eyes are very sensitive to different shades of color, so yes, we will notice small differences in color even if the difference is very small. (even if the spectrum chart of 2 bulbs look almost exactly the same).
Awesome vid.
how informative! tnx
Hey Dennis, been watching all your videos. Most of them repeatedly to really have it ingrained in my memory. I wonder if you can do a video on the importance of good flow and how best to achieve it on common tank sizes. I feel flow is an important part of planted tanks that we do not get too much information on.
+rustilldown7 haa thanks for the support. yup, still haven't done that one... Odd dimension tanks have more trouble with it. For larger tanks, small supplementary pumps solves the problems quite easily in most cases
Thanks so much .....
Hi Mr Dennis I have ai prime HD with blue 20 green 90 red 90 cool white 20 and warm white 15 but my monte carlo isn't carpeting at all.I do ei dosing and the light is 22 inch above substrate. Full pressurized co2 and dosing extra iron and potassium .
very well said!
+shizdank Thanks man... Haven't seen vids from you for while, keep 'em coming ~
thank you
This explains why my DA FSPEC fixture wasn't giving nearly as good of colors as my Finnex PP 24/7 CC despite having similar PAR ratings. The Finnex just has a better spectrum.
Really miss your videos 😑
Dennis where have you been??
Hi Dennis, this maybe a 5 years ago video, I would like to seek yr advise based on yr explanation all 3 colours red, blue, & green are accepted by plants for photosynthesis. If I have an LED lights that allows me to control the percentage of R,G, & B, (example Chihiros WRGB2), how should I set the percentage to the respective RGB in order to maximise the plants growth and health?
Can you tell me this..
My plants photosynthesis under LED lights which has some red and blue spectrum along with White... so my the plants are photosynthesising which means the light and CO2 are effectively communicating?? Or is there more than the eye can see??
superb video Dennis, what do you suggest for a partly 65 gallon tank. Thanks in advance & please keep making these informative videos. 👌
So over your cave tank you are just using simple CFL? The reds look really good if that is the case. Details please?
+ADU Aquascaping haa... I used 20w 2700k philips warm white CFLs, though the camera white balance makes it less yellow than it is.... the low K rating bulbs have much better reds, no idea why they aren't more popular. My favorite bulb for lamps now is the 3000k 14w LED that fits the E27 base on the desklamp as well. It's a bit less yellow than the 2700k warm white CFL
haha, we are all living a lie! I hope to build an LED setup, and was planning on doing cool white and warm white at a 2:1. And then add in a few royal blues. I have all the plans ready to go, but still fear what it will look like. Everyone keeps saying that is the standard mix. I just don't want it to be too yellow, or too green. And they keep saying not to use any Red LEDs because it will give the Disco look, so I imagine the warm whites will allow red plants to look good?
+ADU Aquascaping Is that what people are saying ? I think reds add good saturation to the reds. The disco look might be a problem for DIYers. Hence BML has their diffuser that works quite well - there is little visible disco effect in the tank, even in their red/white fixtures, not to mention the multi-colored dutch. I think that overly strong blue without red to balance out will wash out colors
I might as well just order a couple blues, a couple cyans, and a couple reds. I am going to use solderless Cree XT-Es. So, I can easily play around with the configuration.
+ADU Aquascaping Do a vid on the build man ha if you have time. I think quite a few ppl are interested in DIYing LEDs.
hI Dennis thankyou for all the great videos. they have been very helpful! is there any way you could make a video on proserpinaca palustris?
+sirbreakemstuff Use more Co2 and light, better to place it directly under the lighting fixture... and slightly lower nitrates to bring out the red; not a very picky plant otherwise
T5 diodes or Led diodes which is better? In the t5 I haven’t found nm mentioned but in led nm mentioned
WEEK Raptor 900 Vs chihiros wrgb2, is week good enough for mid tech?
If green plants reflect green light, is it more beneficial to have green light for red plants?
Thank you for such a good informative video about basic lighting. I'm new to keeping fish & shrimps as well as aquatic plants. Light is crucial to plant growth but how many hours should you keep your lights on? With my orchids I give them 12 hours in the winter. My guess is aquatic plants also need the same hours. But how will 12 hours of lighting affect aquatic animals?
heh thanks... planted tanks in general can get by with far less; tanks do very well with as low as 5hours of light and 7-10 hours is the common range. Many people run less hours in a bid to reduce algae growth. Lighting doesn't affect aquatic creatures much, except in cases where dawn/dusk settings affect spawning behaviour
+Dennis Wong Thank you for replying so quickly. I will continue to set mine for 8 hours then.
Dennis when are you going to make more videos?
A lot of content, little time. If only I can outsource
Too bad man, I hope you find more time to make your videos !
Dennis yes you can outsource. Go to Fiverr and find a video editor gig. Some can help you edit as low as $10. I have used fiverr before to help me my school assignment lol
I thought the number of photons produced by a light is proportional to the current and the surface area of the filament being lit, therefore the metal halide would produce more lumens overall and is stronger than a desk lamp?
+Brandon C. A high wattage metal halide does produce more photons than a desk lamp. That's what I meant in the video. But if the spectrum of the two lamps are identical, the photons will be the same except for the MH producing a large quantity
+Dennis Wong ah yes I understand now. They are moving at the same frequency meaning they are the same exact light.
As always Dennis, Very nice, organized informational video. What do you think about the BuildmyLED fixtures?
+John C I like them a lot... I have a few of them. They're very efficient & high PAR with good mix of colored LEDs; so pretty good color rendering. The color controllable unit is hard to beat; I'll probably get that next. That being said - I still prefer some of the T5 spectrum mixes, even in my own tanks I mix the Dutch BML with a warm white fluorescent lamp to get a better range of orange/red tones.
Hello, I would like your videos to be broadcast in Italian
Very nice, I was looking into the color controllable unit as well. Too bad they don't make any plugin controllers that will work for earlier versions. I have used both T5 HO and buildmyled on different occasions on one of my planted tanks and I think they both work equally as well, the only down side I can see from buildmyled is that if you don't have the intensity adjusted just right then you will have an overgrowth of algae. Oh...one more thing, do you have any opinion on their timer system? good unit to have for planted tanks? (gradual sun up and down)
+John C I have not tried their timer system so far ? So can't say much. I have another light with such a system, and I find it nice to have, but hardly essential. But I do like to have at least 2 tiers of lighting though - say dawn/dusk before switching onto full lights mode. I find fish behave differently during dawn/dusk period and have a wider range of behaviour with the 2 tier lighting. Also nice to see aquascapes in different light modes
+Dennis Wong Maybe one day I will give that a try. Thanks again.
Great presentation and spectacular planted tanks. One question, though. What are those "growth lamps" for? How do they help growth and are they just gimmicks? Thanks!
ha it depends on the quality of the lamps. Generally grow lamps look pinkish as they contain spikes in red/blue, this can help pigmentation in colored plants so they can be useful - I would never use a pure white fixture myself
Thank you, very informative! What led light bar would you recommend for a 10gallon (20lx12hx10w) with a carpet of HC and some rotala? Something in the Finnex line or should I look for alternatives? Thanks for your help!
So, with your experience what kind is the best light to use in a planted tank (equating the cost of the fixture)? Personally what kind of light do you use in your tanks?
Check the Setup process vid; the fixtures are stated there~
hi dennis great video, what do you think about "siesta" schedule for lights on? they say it can prevent algae issues? What is you lightning schedule? thanks
I think its rubbish. 7 - 9 hours straight for CO2 injected tanks.
Nice video. I have dificults to bringout the red on rotalas with LED light, for common fluorescent light is very easy. Whats a good LED fixture setup?
May be your flourescent lighting is much stronger ? Mixing red/orange leds with white give much better outcomes
Dennis! I have a funny question. What is title of your background music in this video?
Nice video. Thanks. But I have 600L planted tank. Can I use this type of led ?
LED wattage 40 W.
Luminous flux 3610Lm
Efficacy 100 Lm/W
Color temperature 6500K
CRI Ra>80
Probably need more than 1 fixture to get good light levels
Seems like Ikea recently changed the rating on the Tertial Desk lamp from 60W to 13W. I had a 23W CFL lightbulb and was a bit worried about it exceeding the rating. Have you had any problems with overheating with the old Tertial lamp? Thanks ahead.
Hmm not as yet, I have quite a few sets of them running 20+ watt CFLs
Thanks Dennis. Appreciate it. Great work on these videos and the website.
Hi Desmond may I know are you using IKEA's light bulb as well? If yes ... May I know how many K are they ?
+Melvin ong I use 2700k ones mostly. Nowadays I use a 3000k Phillips LED bulb that screws into the same E27 base; can be bought at NTUCs and hardware shops
+Dennis Wong I see have the 2700k bulb from IKEA won't it look very orange ? :) but I do see the significant growth after using just 4 days :) .... Having a little green algae problem on my netted riccia :(
+Melvin ong yes it does look very orange. I think depend on your room setup and personal taste, it may be too yellow. Many other people prefer the whiter 6500k daylight bulbs. Either should work fine growth wise
How to grow hygrophila pinnatifida to get red color ? Can i use led 5050 ? help me please
requires low nitrates to get red, not so much to do with lighting
wow, thank you very much.
Hi Dennis, I saw a photo of one of your tanks somewhere on the internet. It was a large tank with one long strip of high powered led chips. The colours were red, blue and white. It was very high above the tank which is why I figure they are at least 3 watts each or more. Do you have the make and model of this light? My tank is 120cm long and 66cm tall. I am struggling to find an LED lighting unit that will penetrate that depth. I want high light as I run Co2 and EI dose and want to grow light demanding plants in there. I'd love to know where you got your light from
It's a custom BML unit with narrow angled lens facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10156968245105433&set=a.10151266201015433.815178.736345432&type=3
Yes that is it there! I just emailed them. I really want that light it looks amazing. Love you plants too. Thanks so much. I hope they post to New Zealand.
thanks ~ BML no longer sell aquarium fixtures ! they switched their business strategy to focus purely on horticulture units... this unit was amongst the last batch they made. Perhaps try finding a custom LED builder; I haven't found a substitute for BML yet too
Dennis Wong plz the detail of the leds you are using. there watts n colour. are they cob ? how many white red n blue ? what is the size of ur tank?
if possible plz post pic of or led.
thanks.
?what is the a suitable wattage of light for 15 gallons fish tank
you mean CFL bulbs ? between 15 - 20w should do fine if you're using 2
Hi dennis. I did not find 5000K. Do you use 4000K?
I use many types of fixtures, some are 4000k
Dennis I got a build my led xb dutch light for my new build and everything grew great, even at 100% intensity and only around 6 inches from my light. everything started stunting almost immediately after I started dosing ei. I assume it was from too much light. I bought a hanging kit but don't know how high I should mount above the tank? any ideas? I have elevated areas where my plants grow about 6 to 8 inches from the surface
+fsu23 Hmm I've ran tanks with twice that amount of light with few issues, sunlight is 2000 PAR... our aquarium fixtures generally don't get anywhere near. One cause I can think of is that as tanks get more crowded, especially if you're having very dense growth is that CO2/nutrient needs increase quite a bit as the tank grows in (and there can be circulation issues with very dense growth), sometimes we need to tune our variations as the tank changes, what works super well at the start may not work as well as growth pattern changes.
+Dennis Wong well in terms of growth not much more has occurred even plants I had under 2/t5s in a diff tank just died pretty quickly.
I've turned up my co2 but I've reached a point where plants still were not improving and my amano shrimp were nearly dying. I'm trying to get my par to where it is on the ada tanks
+fsu23 Don't think it is lighting related because plants can survive in an extremely wide range... 10ish PAR all the way up to 1000s... best look for other factors
+Dennis Wong well ultimately I think it is the co2. but I found it strange that I was able to grow everything perfectly without ferts, then as soon as I started dosing the wallichi instantly burned up along with my Rotala butterfly. I have heard ferts can speed up the growth of plants causing them to need more co2, but not sure ultimately on the truth of that
+fsu23 Did you dose KCl/potassium chloride? I know running high light/CO2 drives up the need for ferts, else color pales or deficiencies becomes visible. can't say the reverse is true though, and I haven't seen any literature that supports it. I think there can be problems with over-dosing through toxicity of trace/fe etc. But we'd have to dose very high levels consistently to hit that... The thing about ferts/water chemistry/plant health is that sometimes there is a lag between cause and effect, so its hard to draw concrete conclusions until after seeing the repeat event a few times, or doing actions that cause reversible effects.
Whats the music in the background?
Check the vid details
hi dennis, how long should the light be on in a day
Anywhere from 6 to 11 hours depending on your setup
Dennis, I have a question for you. I currently use a build my led light that I bought from buildmyled.com. my goal is maximum growth and not tank appearance... I bought a 10k xb series led light. This has mostly red, white lights....
they also have other configurations. .... did I buy the right light for what I'm looking to do? or do you think they sell a better light for maximum plant growth??
+supermannnnn Nope, you're there. I have the same light but am looking to get rid of it because I don't fancy the color rendering. They have blue and reds besides the whites, and have very very high PAR values for the wattage draw. Most of the spectrum is in blue/red so you're good if you are just looking for maximum plant growth. Plenty of light even if your tank was 3ft deep
thank you Dennis! !! your the man!! just curious. which light are you planning to switch to?? are you from Singapore? ? do you grow or sell any rare toninas or syngonanthus?? eriocaulons?? ^___^;;
+supermannnnn I have quite a few of the BML models - I use the Dutch, and another custom spectrum one currently. haa I'm from SG, but I don't keep rare plants. The only plant I have that may be considered rare is Eriocaulon Vomit Blood. Our local shops do carry quite a variety of both of those though
thanks dennis. because I am thinking about buying another bml light . I'll buy another 10k then...
its 60 L
great information!
I do have a question" so do plants need Light?
heh
No
Great video!