Lighting vs clarity glass/water

JAMSOURY · Feb 17, 2018

I’ve been using sbreef leds which have been awesome for light but I recently just got some t5s on a smaller tank and it seems as if the glass and water appears more crystal clear. I guess it can depend on what light settings to use on my leds. Anyone have any experience with this, or recommend certain lights that really bring out the clarity of the glass and water? It just looks a lot more vivid and cleaner!

mcarroll · Feb 21, 2018

It's not clarity of the glass, it's more light in the visible range....LED's (almost always?) look dimmer than halide or T5 for this reason.

(Unless it's something else.

)

scott11106 · Feb 21, 2018

i am not familiar with the lights you have but there are many levels of LED lighting and many qualities that would change the way the light is seen both out of the water and in. Having said this the reason some LED's are so expensive is they are able to give clear intense light with better spectrum and range so not all LED's are created equally. T5's work really well but over time just make sure you check them as they will loose some spectrum and therefore start to not look as good and effect coral and algae growth, but replace the bulb and back in business

Finhead · Feb 21, 2018

LED's are point source so they are very directional, so they appear dimmer due to this. T5's are very diffuesed and give a far better coverage/spread, that is why the appear brighter as they are lighting far more of the tank.

scott11106 said:
i am not familiar with the lights you have but there are many levels of LED lighting and many qualities that would change the way the light is seen both out of the water and in. Having said this the reason some LED's are so expensive is they are able to give clear intense light with better spectrum and range so not all LED's are created equally. T5's work really well but over time just make sure you check them as they will loose some spectrum and therefore start to not look as good and effect coral and algae growth, but replace the bulb and back in business

The spectrume of T5's don't change as much as most think they would.