# Have you seen these LEDs at Costco??!



## Threnjen (Jan 10, 2013)

Husband and I just got back from Costco where we saw and purchased a new product that we think has very interesting potential use at a low price and energy investment.

Sylvania Mosaic Flexible Light Kit. The kit is $30. It is a set of 6 2-ft strips (so 12 feet overall) of true RGB LEDs, run by a 29W power supply. The strips are fully flexible, have an adhesive backing, and are connected in a line by flexible connection pieces so you can manipulate and turn them easily. So for example it would be quite easy to run all twelve across a 4ft aquarium in 3 rows. The strip itself is fully encased in silicone, making the LEDs impervious to water. There are 12 LED nodes on each 2 ft strip, and each node is true RGB with a green, red and blue light. All of them on (the entire 6 strips) at full brightness pulls 12w (hubby has a device to measure). So, they are not super high wattage LEDs, but there are a lot. Also since the power supply is 29w and the LEDs only pull 12w, you could probably link up two sets of these to a single power supply and run 24 feet of LED strips.

The kit also includes a remote! Since these are true RGB LEDs you can adjust what color they show. The only drawback is that since this isn't really intended for Aquarium lighting, there is only one "white" setting and I'm not sure what the color tone is. But, it's definitely full spectrum because you can even see the little individual red, green and blue spots in each LED node. In addition to white it can show red, blue, green and any color in between. They also can be adjusted in brightness.

Husband is excited and is attaching these to a reflective styrofoam board right now to suspend over the aquarium. So I'll have some pictures with a before and after of that soon.

Pictures so far:


























Here you can see the strips and the connectors. All are flexible and the strips are encased in silicone.

Here we're showing some of the different light colors it produces:

























White color:


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## Threnjen (Jan 10, 2013)

So we found the spec sheet for this. These are not very bright LEDs, for sure. It's 40 lumens per 2 foot strip. So one package is 240 lumens.
Not sure if 240 lumens for $30 is a good value or not, but there's more info at least!

Spec sheet

So these couldn't be use for much more than nighttime lighting, or maybe color correction. They are definitely at best an accent light.

Still to post some photos of them on the aquarium, stay tuned if you are interested.

For comparison:
Marineland Single Bright LED 48" is 800 lumens
Satellite Freshwater LED+ 48" is 2000 lumens

Despite the low light output I'm already interested in these as a simple "color correction" visually. They make a distinctive difference in the overly green tone of our lighting when set to a teal color. Very interesting indeed. They also look really nice just as a low-light "evening" look when turned on bright white. It gives it a look of overcast or low evening/morning light.


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## majerah1 (Oct 29, 2010)

Very neat !


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## choutman (Mar 6, 2012)

those are cool and may have a viable application in my fish room thanks for sharing!!


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## dalfed (Apr 8, 2012)

Used a product similar to this for under cabinet lighting, actually gives off decent lighting. Might not grow plants for you but could highlight your tank for viewing. Just be careful of getting them wet, directly or evaporation.


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## Threnjen (Jan 10, 2013)

I have yet to get any pictures worth a damn, but I'm still trying. I just need to stop using my stupid camera phone and get out our nice DLSR.

Anyway hubby hooked up 10 strands (turns out that is the max they want you to hook together) and mounted it to lightweight reflective styrofoam (i think it's foam insulation? we had it already) and suspended it in the hood.

We're using magenta to color correct the tank which makes total sense - the color is too green from our fluorescent 2x 6500k, 1x 5000k & 1x 10,000k. So adding some red and blue helps offset too much green and makes the whole tank look brighter and richer. And plants like red and blue right, so shouldn't this just be adding some additional usable spectrum for the plant lighting.

We have 2 strands and a power supply still, so I'm going to use that as low energy and low heat lighting for the algae scrubber in my sump. Works out pretty nicely!!


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

Unfortunately those lights probly won't do much good for plants.They may work very well for evening or moon lights though.
But on to more important things;Algae scrubber!Way to go!Put the nutrients and their by product(algae) where you want it (out of sight and mind!)
You have almost done "way too much research" if it is possible.


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## Threnjen (Jan 10, 2013)

coralbandit said:


> You have almost done "way too much research" if it is possible.


Impossible! It will be the best newbie tank EVER! RAAAAA!!!!

Re: helping the plants, eh. Doesn't matter. The color correction it does on the tank is worth it all. We were planning to invest in a new light fixture just because we don't enjoy the color tone of the tank, but now we don't need to. It's now quite attractive.
We already have a night LED that I got on eBay (easy and nice kit by the way, from DigiKits). But with this new strip we can really make the night lights look attractive.

Here's some pictures, we did our best to capture the colors...


First up is daytime. Here is the tank originally without the new LEDS.









And here is the tank with the LEDs on magenta, color correcting the too-prominent green tone








Tank is brighter and more "clear" looking.
You can see the LEDs on the upper parts of the "cattle skull" wood

Tank with our existing basic night LEDs. It's not as dark as it appears in the picture.









Night LEDs + new LEDs set to pure white. Makes a very pleasant low-light look for dusk or dawn with very pretty color.









Our favorite "night" look adding a bit of red tone to the blue. Looks very rich.









This one has the look and feel of a sunrise or sunset where the low sun is hitting the water.









Another one that has the feel of the rising or setting sun.









Pure blue, adds more "moonlight" to the tank


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