# New LED light



## MriGuy85 (Aug 29, 2013)

Today I found a new LED light fixture made by national geographic. 

This is it: National Geographic? Freshwater Aquarium LED Light

I got it for my Cory tank. It's puts out a decent amount of light, but not too much. Not sure how well this would work for planted tanks because it's not super intense and it only had white and blue LEDs. I've found that it seems to be the perfect brightness for my 20g Cory tank, and the price was not bad! The current satellite fixture in the same size was in the $90 range. This light only cost $45 at petsmart. Not a bad compromise. Since Corys spook easily, I didn't find the effects of the satellite fixture to be suitable for the tank.
Anyone else have this light?

Pic attached for K rating.


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## woody019 (Oct 4, 2012)

I don't personally have the light you described but it you ever do a heavy planted tank and are a little handy. I would recommend getting a DIY LED light fixture (they also have retrofits for many commercially made nano tanks) from RapidLED. They are very affordable for what you get being a fraction of the cost of big name one's and are just as good as if not better than the big name outrageously priced big name LED fixtures. They also make it available to make the LED's dimmable. The website sells high power true 3W CREE LED's in whatever color you want and are very intense at their highest setting, not anything like the cheap chinese knock off's you see on ebay. Also if you have a deep tank and need light penetration for plants in the substrate you can get a lens to focus the light being given off by the LED. 

I have their retrofit kit hanging over my biocube 14. The lights can easily support the most light demanding corals that can be bought. Plan on connecting it to a controller that will allow me to replicate a natural day and throw in many other factors such as a cloudy day among other things. Sorry for that rant haha

Another great LED fixture for setting up another smaller tank that is reasonably priced for what you get comes from TruAqua being the website and aquatop being the product name. They have clip on LED fixtures ranging from $24.99 for a 21 LED fixture to $69.99 for a planted/reef capable fixture. Looking into one of these myself, I have two of their canisters on different tanks and I will never buy another brand canister. They beat all the well known competition hands down for way less money. So I don't see why it wouldn't carry over to the rest of their products.

One Last product I would recommend is a E27 Par38 LED bulb. E27 is the size of the part that screws into any standard house socket. A great cheap way to set it up on the tank is to get one of those clamp on desk lamps and put the Par38 LED bulb in it. Those range from $25 on ebay to a brand name one for $80. These are a great option for a variety of set-ups as they can depending on the watts you get can range from "normal" intensity to very high intensity. Set up a few, to light a whole tank or just 1-2 for accent lighting in an area that you want to light demanding plants or a moonlight if you get all blue. Although the ebay bulbs are hit or miss on quality sometimes you get an ok bulb and other times you get a top of the line bulb depending on the seller.

I know this doesn't really answer the question you ask but thought I would share some other future options that compete with the best at a price you can't beat. I eventually will switch all my tanks to LED's as they use way less electricity, put of less heat and lifespan is exponentially longer then PC's, Fluorescences and Metal Halides which in return save costs on having to replace bulbs. Hope your LED fixture doesn't disappoint you.


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