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Little Short Term LED Experiment with a few Cephs

I ordered a http://www.rapidled.com/4-led-solderless-moonlight-kit/ with some other LEDs to play around with, I'm intending to try it out on a shrimp tank I'm setting up for my wife. I finished the LED strip this morning and I won't be filling that tank up with water for a while because I want to grow in some plants emersed before adding the water. So that leaves me with some extra open space that will be lighted for about a month.

Might as well use it.

I asked them to ship me 4 http://www.rapidled.com/solderless-cree-xp-g-neutral-white-led-1/ instead of the moonlight LEDs, I should have went with a more blue white but its too late now. One important piece of information about this kit, the driver is 350mA constant current, so the LED are operating well under max power. I added 4 80 degree lenses to help focus the light.

This is in no way scientific and is very subjective but I figured someone would like to see the progress.

As I am mainly interested in how well Ceph's will color up I picked some smaller/greener ones.

Here are our three contestants:

DSC_0772 by randallsimpson, on Flickr

DSC_0773 by randallsimpson, on Flickr

DSC_0774 by randallsimpson, on Flickr

And the LED bar.

DSC_0775 by randallsimpson, on Flickr

The whole thing.

DSC_0776 by randallsimpson, on Flickr

For those interested I am not just being cruel to these Cephs and giving them more light then sending them back to the dungeon, they will be going into the 2nd shelf here http://www.terraforums.com/forums/s...uild-a-Cephalotus-grow-space-would-love-input!
 
An interesting experiment. I could see a kit like that being used to augment other light sources to increase intensity or to change the spectrum as well. Thanks for the supplier links.
 
your going to force me to get started on a led set up , i get more excited every time you post more info ,
thanks again for the work on these threads.
 
your going to force me to get started on a led set up , i get more excited every time you post more info ,
thanks again for the work on these threads.

Ditto.
 
Its been one week since I put them under and figured a quick update would be helpful. Sadly I seem to get more supplies/plants for the shrimp setup every day so this will have to end sooner than later. The results so far are really encouraging considering its only 1 LED per Ceph and running at such low power.

The "old low light" growth has shown little change in this one but take a look at the new growth!

DSC_0799 by randallsimpson, on Flickr

The Emu is coloring up much nicer, but they love me :-D.

DSC_0800 by randallsimpson, on Flickr

Its hard to see with this photo but its starting to tan, I did have to move it this morning slightly away from the LED for planting in the main tank. So less light for it in the future.

DSC_0801 by randallsimpson, on Flickr
 
Further proof that the Emu's love me. The other 2 are starting to tan but not as fast.

DSC_0827 by randallsimpson, on Flickr

I've been impressed enough with this moonlight kit that I ordered another one with the rest of the LEDs just so I can reset this up in another area for a much longer term. For around 3-5W of power with no heat I can notice I think these need further investigation. Just need to find the happy medium for good color but not a ton of "extra" light.
 
Just removed the Emu Point Ceph in order to plant that cubicle of the tank. So here are the results of this one after 18 days. Not much happened growth wise but that is not uncommon for a Ceph to do nothing for months.

Keep in mind this is one LED lighting this one Ceph running around .75-1.25W per LED. Without messing with a meter I can't get a better number and I don't care enough to bother :-D.

Before.

DSC_0773 by randallsimpson, on Flickr

After.

DSC_0839 by randallsimpson, on Flickr
 
The increase in coloration says to me that the spectrum and light intensity are probably fine for growing. Of course more time would be needed to be certain but that is pretty impressive for such little wattage.
 
Not sure why this one it taking so long, they are all under the same type of LEDs. Its getting some color just taking so much longer.

DSC_0853 by randallsimpson, on Flickr

Nice color on this one and the new growth in coming in red also.

DSC_0852 by randallsimpson, on Flickr
 
  • #10
Clones of the same plant in identical pots of identical compost under the same lighting conditiions ( natural light) and the same watering regime will colour up differently, so to get a variable result from your three different plants is really no surprise.
 
  • #12
I removed the last one this morning and am currently filing the tank with water so no more updates on this.

Last Ceph, added 16 Nov

DSC_0772 by randallsimpson, on Flickr

About a month and a week later.

DSC_0875 by randallsimpson, on Flickr
 
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