Aquarium Lighting

[mitch70]

How often do you replace your bulbs?

 

[ech0o]

LED, ill replace it when the unit shorts in a few years!!!  medium-tech planted

 

[DerpPH]

Me my 14 watt has benn running for 3 years counting

 

[Livewire88]

When I was running tubes I would replace every 12 months, on both high and low tech tanks.

 

[mike455555]

it all depends on the tube, T8s you should replace every 6 months T5s are every 2 years (i think) and high powered LEDs, when they blow or stop working 
 
 
high tech, low tech. in-between. cant vote on that one either   

 

[mitch70]

T8's every 6 month? mine say have service life of 7500 hrs?

 

[mike455555]

well i got told 6-8 months for T8's, personally i change them when they blow and my plants are fine 

 

[levahe]

I use a pair of 30w t8s for my high tec, and have been running them for nearly 2 years.

 

[Livewire88]

The thing is that the human naked eye is not as sensitive as plants are to the strength/power of light, so even if your lighting looks as bright as it did 10-12 months ago the light that is being emmited will be lower than when the bulb was new.
 
This will make a difference to your plants, it will not be that noticable in a low tech set up but will be more notcable in a high tech set up. WIth my LED tiles I can set them at 85% and then anything higher up to 100% is not noticable to my eyes. After swapping my T5 bulbs after 12 months use I would notice my plants pearling a lot heavier than they did with the 12 month old tubes.
 
Like Mike said using bulbs till they blow is fine, your plants wont die off they will just adapt to the lower levels of light and grow slower.

 

[mike455555]

im running 1 T8 on my low tech new bulb / set up not so long ago 

 

[Livewire88]

im running 1 T8 on my low tech new bulb / set up not so long ago 

 
On a low tech set up I like you would just run the bulb till it dies out.

 

[mitch70]

Thanks for the replies interesting to see what people do, guess my t8's have some life left in them yet