Loaches Online Forum

My old coralife lights didn't survive a recent move... so I am taking this as a sign to upgrade.

I have a 75g tank with 4 clowns. It will be lightly planted with hardy species like anubias and java fern, etc.

I would like one of the new LED setups that includes moonlighting. And I would like something I can just buy... I'm all DIY'd out right now.

Any recommendation or suggestions or feedback on any of the popular brands or lights out there right now? I get a little confused myself when looking at this. Pricing seems to range from 100 or so, up to 400 dollars, and I am not always sure why.

This thing is $80 bucks: http://www.amazon.com/Marineland-32997- ... m+lighting

This one is $140: http://www.amazon.com/Marineland-NV3300 ... m+lighting

And this bad boy is $400!: http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/p ... 4726&r=518

Figured I would try to pick your brains on this before I end up spending money on something I don't need (or wasting money on something that doesn't meet my needs!)

I did some more digging late last night and... phew, it seems one need be an electrical engineer or physics teacher to figure out aquarium lighting these days!! Long gone is the watts per gallon rule of thumb. Now we are dealing with PAR, “photosynthetically active radiation”.

Problem is, doesn't seem like many manufacturers list PAR on their products.

I found this though, and seems to help: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showt ... p?t=160396

If accurate, that seems to suggest that the 48 to 60 inch Marineland Double Bright LED has 32 PAR for a standard 75 G tank.

It goes on to offer these PAR values as recommendations:
Values between 10-30 are considered low light.
Values between 30-80 are considered medium light.
Values between 80-120 are considered high light.

So, it sounds like with the Double Bright LED, I would be at the top of the low light, bottom of the medium light. I'm guessing that should be fine for low light species like anubias, etc.