How important is it to run lights on lower power?

[JustaSunday]

I made a post just yesterday looking for some feedback on what to do and how to go about getting certain colors to look better under my lighting. Inevitably the solution presented it's self as securing another light bar that has more whites or ambers in it, this is something easily done. My thoughts now move on to power use and par output. My current setup utilized two quanta led bars (one meso blue and one reefcrest daylight) over a 20g long, using the included 0-10v dimmer and both bars set to "100%" I can achieve roughly 130-140 on the sandbed with 260-290 right below the waters surface while the lights are mounted about 12.5 inches above the tank. I mount the bars so high so that the spread is as even and blended as I can get it.

If I were to move forward and purchase a second reefcrest daylight to shift the spectrum slightly one way (during peak brightness) I would more than surely have to decrease the output of all the bars or risk having the upper region of my tank getting close to 400par. I try to run a mixed reef so this is not necessarily the most ideal, at any rate, if we can assume that the second daylight bar does shift the spectrum to something favorable and that I would need to turn down each bar to lets say 70% (the 0-10v is unfortunately not linear with watts usage and actual par output), would the decreased power consumption and subsequent heat generated make the bars last a considerable amount longer vs if I continue to run the two I have at nearly 100% during every hour they are on?

Just to note, my current lighting setup produces minimal shadowing and all coral seem to be growing as expected (except maybe a super slow growing tubinaria) so the addition and potential change of hue would only to achieve a slightly less blue look and to run the bars at lower wattage.

My overall thoughts lead me to believe that reduced power consumption per bar will aid greatly in the longevity of the fixtures assuming that proper ventilation and spacing between bars remains appropriate, I mainly speak from the experience of seeing so many AI primes that were roasted or had brunt lenses come through a lfs I used to work for.

Any other thoughts are welcome!

 

[commod0re]

if they have active cooling (fans) then it likely won’t make a massive difference in terms of longevity. LEDs typically live for well over 300,000 hours (>35 years) of “on” time as long as it can dissipate the heat sufficiently. Going even cooler might have some minor effect on longevity as well, but, LEDs last so long already that you would never be able to tell for sure that anything you did or didn’t do had any effect

 

[JustaSunday]

if they have active cooling (fans) then it likely won’t make a massive difference in terms of longevity. LEDs typically live for well over 300,000 hours (>35 years) of “on” time as long as it can dissipate the heat sufficiently. Going even cooler might have some minor effect on longevity as well, but, LEDs last so long already that you would never be able to tell for sure that anything you did or didn’t do had any effect

Thats a good point, I think when I have seen fixtures that are "failing" it is usually due to the lenses burning up witch is more a lens quality issue then the led I imagine. The quanta lights are built pretty robust so more than likely this will never be an issue.

 

[Baldguy]

Question about your quanta's. You thought the blue and reefcrest combo was too blue? Reason I ask I've got a 120g 4x2x2 tank. I've got 4 bars on it. Two blue and two white. Not Quanta's. To my eyes when all are on it's too white. Considering shifting to quanta's. Had thought two meso blue and two reefcrest as I've heard the reefcrest is a little bluer than other whites.

 

[JustaSunday]

Question about your quanta's. You thought the blue and reefcrest combo was too blue? Reason I ask I've got a 120g 4x2x2 tank. I've got 4 bars on it. Two blue and two white. Not Quanta's. To my eyes when all are on it's too white. Considering shifting to quanta's. Had thought two meso blue and two reefcrest as I've heard the reefcrest is a little bluer than other whites.

Great question! Honestly they are a great balance of not too blue but also not freshwater white, I would say I could have been happy with two reefcrests but if I went that route then the greens and some oranges would have less vibrancy/depth. Adding the meso greatly helped this for specifically fluorescent pigments but also unintentionally slightly washed out some things like yellow and non fluorescent greens, reds, oranges. The pink in softies looks great though. In a perfect world if I could do a 5 bar mix I would do two mesos, the reefcrest and then a single tropic sun as I think the only thing I'm missing is some more amber in the spectrum (for my eyes anyway).

For reference I would say I'm currently at this images 9k give or take 500 when it actually lights up the tank, the light spill on the wall has the reefcrest closer to 8k maybe a tad less while the meso blue is certainly 10k at least on its own.

 

[Baldguy]

Great question! Honestly they are a great balance of not too blue but also not freshwater white, I would say I could have been happy with two reefcrests but if I went that route then the greens and some oranges would have less vibrancy/depth. Adding the meso greatly helped this for specifically fluorescent pigments but also unintentionally slightly washed out some things like yellow and non fluorescent greens, reds, oranges. The pink in softies looks great though. In a perfect world if I could do a 5 bar mix I would do two mesos, the reefcrest and then a single tropic sun as I think the only thing I'm missing is some more amber in the spectrum (for my eyes anyway).

For reference I would say I'm currently at this images 9k give or take 500 when it actually lights up the tank, the light spill on the wall has the reefcrest closer to 8k maybe a tad less while the meso blue is certainly 10k at least on its own.

Thank you so much. I suppose I could do the five bar setup including a Tropic Sun. Use a dimmer to fine tune the color. Lots to think about.

 

[MasterClassReefs]

if they have active cooling (fans) then it likely won’t make a massive difference in terms of longevity. LEDs typically live for well over 300,000 hours (>35 years) of “on” time as long as it can dissipate the heat sufficiently. Going even cooler might have some minor effect on longevity as well, but, LEDs last so long already that you would never be able to tell for sure that anything you did or didn’t do had any effect

I wish they made led lights that had a 35 year lifespan. I have yet to see one. Planned obsolescence would never allow such a thing to exist as its not a profitable model. As far as them lasting long? I change a lot of led bulbs man... not sure about this. I have some old bulbs from the early 90s still going though! Tried half a dozen AI lights, none lasted beyond 2 years. I hear more market hype than reality regarding leds more often than not.

 

[Nor'easter Reefer]

I wish they made led lights that had a 35 year lifespan. I have yet to see one. Planned obsolescence would never allow such a thing to exist as its not a profitable model. As far as them lasting long? I change a lot of led bulbs man... not sure about this. I have some old bulbs from the early 90s still going though! Tried half a dozen AI lights, none lasted beyond 2 years. I hear more market hype than reality regarding leds more often than not.

Yea none of the major manufacturers of reef lights make those claims any more. The lights may turn kn but they do in fact degrade. Temperature control is the key to how quickly though

 

[commod0re]

IAs far as them lasting long? I change a lot of led bulbs man... not sure about this.

mean time before failure for LED modules ranges from 300,000 to over 1,000,000 hours. Those stats don’t come from nowhere, but it’s equally important to remember that they are a statistical mean and that it is specifically around the LED and doesn’t include any of the other electronics it’s attached to which can also fail

In this case, because the question was specifically around longevity with respect to power level I focused on the LEDs themselves. It is equally true that heat has a negative effect on the rest of the electronics, and equally true that increasing the margin of effective heat dissipation doesn’t really have increased benefit in terms of device longevity

I should note that it has been my experience with power supplies that running them above 80% of their rated capacity greatly shortens the lifespan, but going below that doesn’t make nearly as much difference. Overall the biggest problem with many LED bulbs is that they cannot passively dissipate enough of the heat that they create (and lack active cooling) and that’s what causes so many of them to fail prematurely. In cases where the device cannot dissipate enough heat to run within its electronics’ optimal temperature range, it can definitely help to run them at lower power, but only to the point where it doesn’t run “too hot” - just the same as the cases where the fixture is capable of dissipating heat sufficiently, going further suffers greatly diminishing return

As to whether or not running the light itself at 80% has any benefit depends on whether or not the circuit design already includes that safety margin or not. In cases where it does not, which may be common, it could indeed make a big difference (for the power supply circuitry specifically) to run the lights at 80% output