I personally don't have the liquid cash to throw at high end led fixtures so I have opted to go with a midrange fixture. (ever grow 2080). Now I have only ordered the fixture last week so I still don't have it to say if I like the lighting or not but I had to factor cost into the equation.
My current fixture is a 14 bulb t5 fixture over a 180gallon tank. This means that at approx 20$ or more a bulb it costs me around 300$ to do a bulb change. It also means that when I turn on my lights it's drawing just under 560 watts. With this in mind I bought the led fixture.
I was due for a bulb change - 300$
Led fixture comes with a 3 year warranty
In that 3 year period I will have to do basically 3 more bulb changes 900$ more
So by the time my warranty is up I will have saved 1200$ in bulbs not to mention about 200 watts per hour running. So roughly 2 KwH per day.
Being that the 2 fixtures needed to cover my tank will only cost me 1000$ it was a risk I had to take.
|