LED Lighting (TMC and Finnex)

[Snapper]

I only found a few sources (such as AAP and Aquarium Digest) saying TMC and other "high end" LEDs are better than Finnex, but seemingly everyone else (on forums, reviews, vlogs, etc.) say Finnex is a great light. Despite this, I've been sold on TMC being far superior to Finnex, but I still have some questions about the two.

I have a low tech planted tank (36L x 12W x 18H) and I'm thinking of getting one GroBeam 600 Ultima (is that good enough for the tank? I'll also be using a glass lid.). I was previously thinking of getting a Finnex Planted+ or wait for their next Planted+ model which would be dimmable.

The spectrum chart for both LEDs look very similar, so it appears to have the same PUR (to me at least. There's probably something wrong with my reasoning). Yet I've read that the Finnex Ray II has very high PAR, but low PUR. Why is this the case?
www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=189944
Page 28 of the PDF
www.tropicalmarinecentre.co.uk/flipping/AquaRay/files/assets/downloads/AquaRay.pdf

Much of the lighting information on AAP is on reef tanks, but some information is on freshwater planted tanks. From what I understand, most light should be in the red or blue spectra for photosynthesis, but it sounds like reef tanks need more blue. What about planted tanks, do they need much red light? Based on the charts above, the GroBeam 600 doesn't have a spike in the red, but the Finnex Planted+ would have this spike due to their 660nm red lights. I know red light doesn't penetrate water well, but is it still unnecessary?

[devonjohnsgard]

Hey Snapper. Welcome to the group!

[devonjohnsgard]

There's a few reasons why a professional grade LED such as the AquaRay are better. While they might have the "same" rating, the design of both the fixtures are much different.

I do think Finnex give good color and they have a lot of user features. The AquaRay choose to just focus on quality 6500K lighting. How they arrive a their color is much different and if you even had both fixtures at 6500K, they would be different in the "useful" light be provided for the aquarium.

The 6500K in GroBeam does have high amounts of energy in the blue and also red side of the light spectrum. That's the advantage of having a quality 6500K over say a 5500K, because there is more red in the 6500K. AquaRay use straight patented 6500K from Cree. Finnex mixes different color type, which is different than just straight 6500K with lots more wasted Green and Yellow light in the Finnex.

The additional red is not required, unless you have a poor mix of emitters, which lack in red.

The professional design of the AquaRay, gives much more to the fixture as well. Like being able to use less emitters to make the same amount of light. This allows them to not use fans... Which saves life of the emitters. Also is waterproof. Moisture over time does wear on emitters. so waterproof quality circuity is a must for long term use of a LED system.

For a lower tech 30 gal, one AquaRay 600 is all you would need. They also come with a 5 year warranty and is very comparable in price to Finnex.

[Carl]

As Devon noted it often comes down to the mix of emitters/light sources to arrive at the end light output.

Since I have been in the industry since 1978, we used to use hardware store warm white lamps for our planted aquariums.
Did this work? Yes, but there was a lot of wasted energy.

While the difference in emitters is not as great as the example I just gave, there still is a difference (also the AquaRay uses licensed emitters that are much higher cost than the binned ones used by Finnex). You also do not see professional vertical plant growers using cool white emitters.

Then there is build quality, which is why Finnex offer one of the lowest warranty periods in the industry.

Reference this website:
aquariumopinions.com/2013/12/16/aquarium-led-warranties-reef-or-planted/

We do provide quite a bit of information in the Lighting article that applies to freshwater planted aquariums in my Lighting article as well as the PAR vs PUR/PAS article

www.aquarium-pond-answers.com/2012/03/pur-vs-par-in-aquarium-lighting.html
www.americanaquariumproducts.com/AquariumPlants.html
www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Aquarium_Lighting.html

Carl

[Snapper]

Thanks for the welcome

I guess I don't understand the Aquarium Lighting articles as well as I thought I did because now I'm a little confused. The 9+1=10 and 4+6=10 analogy refers to the mixing of colors to get to 6500K rather than using straight 6500K lights, right? But I don't understand how the Finnex would have more wasted green and yellow if both spectra charts show the same amount of blue, green, yellow, and red. Sorry if I'm a little dense here.

For the red, are you saying that there's no need for a red spike and that the decline in red is fine for plant growth?
So does that mean that the Finnex 660nm red lights are useless and a marketing ploy?

Devon, the comparable price is the major reason I'm considering getting a Grobeam. If it was about $200 like most other "high end" LEDs, I probably wouldn't have done all the reading I did and just stuck with the Finnex. Though, I'm rather disappointed that the controller has to be bought separately, but not only that, it's more expensive than the actual light!

Carl, I was thinking of ordering a Grobeam 600 from AAP, but I live in Canada and was wondering how would the warranty work?
And just for feedback, I think it was a good idea that you wrote in your FAQ why people should buy at AAP. If I didn't read that, I'd probably buy from J&L Aquatics since they're only 30 minutes away from me. I'm just going to wait until the exchange rate goes down before I buy though.

Edit: I was also wondering, what happened to the AquaBar?

[Carl]

Sept 14, 2015 11:06:41 GMT -5 Snapper said:

Thanks for the welcome

I guess I don't understand the Aquarium Lighting articles as well as I thought I did because now I'm a little confused. The 9+1=10 and 4+6=10 analogy refers to the mixing of colors to get to 6500K rather than using straight 6500K lights, right? But I don't understand how the Finnex would have more wasted green and yellow if both spectra charts show the same amount of blue, green, yellow, and red. Sorry if I'm a little dense here.

No your not dense; as this is not a perfect analogy and only applies apples to apples such as 6500K to 6500K, not 6500k to 5500k (cool white) emitters. This is why I explained this more in terms of using the warm white shop light as this is a more comparable analogy to your question, albeit imperfect itself in that it is more extreme in its difference than the emitters in question.
Even among 6500k emitters not all are equal.

This picture below from the Aquarium Lighting article demonstrates this:


Reference:
www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Aquarium_Lighting.html

For the red, are you saying that there's no need for a red spike and that the decline in red is fine for plant growth?
So does that mean that the Finnex 660nm red lights are useless and a marketing ploy?

No, red is needed as per my PAR vs PUR/PAS article. However when less than perfect emitters are used, often either more are needed (as per my Warm White Shop Light analogy) where by many T12 warm white fluorescent tubes were needed just for a 60 gallon aquarium, or supplemental red emitters are needed to make up for lack of energy in certain aspects of the spectrum.

As for a marketing ploy, I will reserve judgment here and state it is more likely the previous explanation I provided.

What is comes down to is the Finnex will keep plants alive, this has been clearly established, it just will use much more energy to do this and the lifespan of these LED fixtures is extremely questionable. With their warranty, you could have to purchase three or more in the time the GroBeam is still under warranty.

Devon, the comparable price is the major reason I'm considering getting a Grobeam. If it was about $200 like most other "high end" LEDs, I probably wouldn't have done all the reading I did and just stuck with the Finnex. Though, I'm rather disappointed that the controller has to be bought separately, but not only that, it's more expensive than the actual light!

You really do not need the controller, all it really does is slowly dim and slowly bring up the lights. Obviously there is much more to these than this, but this is really the only feature that is really important based on my experience. Most everything else this fixture and others do is bells and whistles for you. Of course this controller doe it with PWM, which most others do not, and this is extremely noteworthy for further energy lost as heat and spectral shift.

For years, long before LEDs were used, I kept healthy planted and reef aquariums with other lights, I simply used heavy duty grounded timers to turn the lights on and off, often with more than one timer to stagger how many came on and off at a given time.
You can still use timers for these and other LEDs!!

Carl, I was thinking of ordering a Grobeam 600 from AAP, but I live in Canada and was wondering how would the warranty work?
And just for feedback, I think it was a good idea that you wrote in your FAQ why people should buy at AAP. If I didn't read that, I'd probably buy from J&L Aquatics since they're only 30 minutes away from me. I'm just going to wait until the exchange rate goes down before I buy though.

Edit: I was also wondering, what happened to the AquaBar?

TMC honors their warranty through us still, they just require serial numbers to save on back and forth shipping costs

I appreciate your reading our FAQ and maybe our Business Bio as well

www.americanaquariumproducts.com/AquariumBio.html

The AquaBar was discontinued by TMC once the rights were bought out by another company who wanted an exclusive on this product.

Carl

[devonjohnsgard]

I second what Carl said. Good Answer.

Not dense, lighting can get in depth and hard to understand every aspect.

The 9+1=10 and 4+6=10, this would be two different ways to create 6500K, which is what most fixtures do...combine warm and cool colors to make a rating close to 6500K. You can literately shine 5 different 6500K and they all be slightly different. This is for fixtures mixing colors to get 6500K.

Fixtures that are heavy on blue while mixing their colors, will make sure they are getting some red (other side of the spectrum), but adding a red emitter. This makes up the red, which wouldn't have to be made up if a quality 6500K is used, as 6500K has red in the spectrum. See the picture Carl provided above.

There are companies which just have a straight 6500K, not having to mix colors. This again will be different than other 6500K. The graphs will look similar, but clearly, when you look at the light emitted like in the picture Carl showed above, the light will be different.

This is just lighting spectrum we are talking here............ So, even if we can get the same spectrum from these two fixtures, we need to consider heat, waterproof, fan noise....warranty...

So, there's lots that go into LEDS.

[Snapper]

Okay, so I think I’m beginning to understand the answer to my first question (Yes progress! ). But I don’t understand why the spectrum graph and the light emitted picture would be different. Don’t they both represent the same thing?

I’m still confused about the red light being so low. If photosynthesis does best with two spikes, a spike at red and blue, why doesn't the Grobeam have this spike as well? I would assume the Finnex Planted+ has these two spikes due to its red lights. Also, the ColourPlus also has these two spikes, but I'm assuming that this is a viewing light rather than a grow light, but why is that?


I know a controller isn’t crucial, but it’s a nice “toy” to have and I like the bells and whistles. Ramping up and down sounds nice and if the light turns out to be too bright, a dimmer is preferable to raising the entire fixture.
I planned on using a timer anyways since I know I'm not getting the controller. They’re very convenient.

Carl, when you say that the AquaBar was bought out by another company, do you mean that this company sells it now rather than TMC or is the AquaBar off the market and the company is using it for their own personal use?

[parker002]

I honestly put Finnex in the same category as Fluval. I don't think they're enough better than the Marineland and ZooMed to justify the price difference.

In fact, my experience with Finnex tank heaters has been pretty bad. Even the cheap Aqueon heaters have lasted longer.

[Carl]

First Parker makes a good point in that many products add to make up for deficiencies elsewhere. The facts are Finnex is an economy brand sold through mass marketers.
Even the Colour Plus is adding red to make a more eye pleasing light, yet TMC themselves do not recommend this light over the GroBeam for high plant growth.

I would also point out that I prefer pure undoctored/filtered graphs like we show on our website, for this you can see that without the addition of red emitters, the GroBeam provides ample red light (see the picture below from the LED webpage)

As for controllers, I am not going to argue what people like with bells and whistles, as this is subjective. If dimming is something you like, the TMC controller can do this, and do this using PWM



Reference:
www.americanaquariumproducts.com/LEDLights.html

Carl

[devonjohnsgard]

Sept 15, 2015 14:01:39 GMT -5 Snapper said:

Okay, so I think I’m beginning to understand the answer to my first question (Yes progress! ). But I don’t understand why the spectrum graph and the light emitted picture would be different. Don’t they both represent the same thing?

I’m still confused about the red light being so low. If photosynthesis does best with two spikes, a spike at red and blue, why doesn't the Grobeam have this spike as well? I would assume the Finnex Planted+ has these two spikes due to its red lights. Also, the ColourPlus also has these two spikes, but I'm assuming that this is a viewing light rather than a grow light, but why is that?


I know a controller isn’t crucial, but it’s a nice “toy” to have and I like the bells and whistles. Ramping up and down sounds nice and if the light turns out to be too bright, a dimmer is preferable to raising the entire fixture.
I planned on using a timer anyways since I know I'm not getting the controller. They’re very convenient.

Carl, when you say that the AquaBar was bought out by another company, do you mean that this company sells it now rather than TMC or is the AquaBar off the market and the company is using it for their own personal use?

It's all about how much energy it takes to create the best possible spectrum. GroBeam has the best growing spectrum watt per watt, so while AquaRay and Finnex may have similar looking spectrums, they are created differently. Watt per watt, GroBeam has the most growing power.

So, the light emitted and what's on the graph are the same, but when looking at the units of energy, how much does it take both and how does that look for the construction of the fixture. 10 emitters vs 100 emitters. Voltage the emitters are being ran...

Red is useful, but energy efficacy wise, the 6500K has this red (not the spike, as it would take more energy). So, you could have more "useful" light, but it would just take more energy to produce. True 6500K has been shown to have the best efficacy.

Also too, the larger red spike, while it might produce a little more growing power, with a little more energy used, this would actually be more for appearance reasons rather than a growing power reason. On the flip side of the extra red is the red tone it gives the tank. So it's a preference and a balance.

So, this is all talk about the spectrum of the light.... not the quality of the build, like circuitry, emitters, drivers, heat/fans (how much of the spectrum is wasted), moisture rating, warranty.

At the end of the day, if 1 emitter goes out on the cheaper made fixture, it has to be replaced and the cost of lighting for the aquarium just costed more...

I understand your what your saying about dimming. It's just a known fact in engineering community that proper long term dimming of emitters needs to be done with PWM. Emitters are most energy efficient at a certain voltage/current, but with dimming voltage/current change with 0-10V dimming. This is stress on the emitter and leads to burn out. Once a emitter is out, spectrums can shift.

So you know. The AquaBar line was bought out by a cabinet manufacture in the UK, which wanted the light all to them self. It was taken off the market, when AquaRay sold out to the company.

[parker002]

Sept 16, 2015 11:20:20 GMT -5 devonjohnsgard said:

I understand your what your saying about dimming. It's just a known fact in engineering community that proper long term dimming of emitters needs to be done with PWM. Emitters are most energy efficient at a certain voltage/current, but with dimming voltage/current change with 0-10V dimming. This is stress on the emitter and leads to burn out. Once a emitter is out, spectrums can shift.

This needs to be highlighted IMHO.

From an electrical perspective, it's generally not a good idea to dim LED emitters. In fact, unless the manufacturer uses specific circuitry, they might not even dim, just turn off when the voltage drops.

Again this is only my opinion, but if you want your LEDs to last a long time, turn them on or off and skip the rest.

[Snapper]

I think I understand it now. Thanks for answering my questions, I really appreciate you guys spending the time to do so. Now I just hope that the exchange rate drops soon :/

[Snapper]

Hi again,

I still haven’t gotten a Grobeam yet. The USD/CAD exchange rate is just ridiculous for these past months! Oh well, I guess I’m in no rush.

I’ve come up with a few more questions that I was hoping you could answer.

1. What is your opinion on BML? I notice you don’t have a review of it in Aquarium Article Digest on the article on aquarium LEDs and I was wondering why. It seems to be a highly praised light.

2. Would the BML SoLunar controller work with AquaRays? It says it’s compatible with both 0-10V analog and PWM dimming signals. I was just wondering since I came across it, but I probably won’t be buying any controllers anyways since a simple timer would work fine for me. Like you said, I really don’t need a controller.

3. You’ve said that the AquaBar was taken off the aquarium LED market, but why do I still see some sellers in the UK selling them?
Anyways, TMC has a new line of AquaBars out called the AquaBar T-series. Do you know much about them? Do you think you’re going to sell these as well?

4. This one isn’t a questions, it’s more of a feedback. The same tank is used for two different lighting product. It seems the same tank was used to display both the Grobeam strip (though we can’t see the strip) and a SHO bulb. On the LED lights General Recommendations page it says

First, specimen or plant placement is key, for instance a generalized recommendation for 40 gallon planted tank would be (2) GroBeam 600s (24 watts total).

However, with just one 12 watt LED strip, one can still grow even high light plants well if placed directly under the lighting as per an employee here with just (1) GroBeam on his 40 gal. aquarium.

See this picture link:
40 Gal Planted, (1) GroBeam

Yet the picture shows a rather bare tank that only contains java ferns and something else that I can’t identify. From the caption above, I would have thought that the picture would show a heavily planted tank with high light plants.

[Carl]

(1) The BML is one of the better LEDs

BML still uses the binned approach to emitters rather than a a better pure and natural (& proven) high noon tropical sun 6500K emitters
As well the BML is more blue than is optimum from my experience in freshwater lighting

As for Aquarium Article Digest; my friend (whom we are one of the sponsors for this website) and who has written most of the reviews has chosen to not review the BML for moral reasons due to business practices by a staff member that include very dishonest and personal attacks upon me. Some of the comments included comparisons of me to something I am not going to share here.

If you choose to do business with a company like this, this is your moral choice, but I am glad to have friends who support honest debate on aquarium keeping, not personal attacks (& I am not just speaking about lighting)

This review compare these lights well :
aquariumledstudy.com/2015/12/09/tmc-aquaray-vs-build-my-led/

(2) The controller is not PWM compatible with the AquaRay

(3) As noted the AquaBar was taken off the market as the patent used was bought out.
Any AquaBars still available are from inventory by TMC

This said the AquaBar is coming back with a new design that does not use the same emitters and is designed to fit into T5 & T8 aquarium fixtures as an upgrade.

These are not yet available here in NA and are not the same as the previous AquaBar.
As well, they are not to the caliber of the GroBeam in quality of emitter, PAR, PUR and water proof rating.

(4) The picture you are askking about is used to make the point that this is lit by only ONE 12 watt Grobeam for a 40 gallon aquarium. For a high light tank two or maybe more would be suggested

Carl

[devonjohnsgard]

Yup.

Even BML being a pretty decent light, still doesn't compare to AquaRay. Just different approaches.

[Carl]

Jan 11, 2016 17:49:41 GMT -5 devonjohnsgard said:

Yup.

Even BML being a pretty decent light, still doesn't compare to AquaRay. Just different approaches.

Simply put and well stated IMO as the BML is one of the top LEDs, and in a few applications such as for the niche of over-driving planted tanks their different approach can sometimes be the better choice. But for most planted aquariums and when you throw in the water resistance rating the AquaRay exceeds this product IMO and in my lighting experience.

Carl