Best Led Lights For Planted Aquariums – Reviews & Guidelines

The Current USA Satellite Plus Pro is a wonderful LED light suitable for most types of aquarium plants. It is designed to produce better light and higher color rendition, and offer more controllable features compared to its predecessor.

The higher PAR output compared to other LED lights for planted tanks makes the Current USA Satellite Plus PRO an ideal choice for growing even the most demanding plants (need PAR > 50).

Its controller offers incredible programmable ability allowing you to control almost everything of the light. It comes with an IR remote control and an included touch keypad for easy programming. The integrated 24-hour timer works even better than only turning on/off the light because it can stimulate sunrise (15 minute ramp up) and sunset (15 minute ramp down) effects in your aquarium.

As you know, underground plants as well as aquatic plants only use light at daytime for the photosynthesis and they needs a cycle including both day and night to thrive. Over lighting doesn’t help to grow plants, vice versa it can stress and kill the plants. The Finnex Planted Plus 24/7 v2 LED light with its controller provides your aquarium plants with a lighting cycle that mimics the natural lighting cycle with sunrise and sunset to make the plants thrive.

This function is named “24/7 feature” which allows for automatic lighting cycle without the need of daily turning on/off the light by your hands. The 24/7 feature stimulates a lighting cycle of a day in nature that start with a cool lit dawn, transitioning into a warm sunrise morning, followed by an intense color blazing high noon, scaling down to a red sun drowned sunset, and finishing with a starry night blue moonlight.

If you do not want to use the preset 24/7 mode, there are so many presets and custom modes for you to choose. There are four buttons on the remote that allows you to activate day elements such as thunderstorms, cloudy days, sunny days, and moonlights. They are pre-programmed and very easy to use by a single click on the button you want. There are also four memory slots accessible via the IR remote control that allow you to customize and save your own countless color combinations and lighting intensities.

The PAR output of the light (provided by the manufacturer) is given in the following table:

The Beamswork DA 6500K is high quality and energy efficient LED light fixture from Beamswork. This is one of the most affordable LED lights for aquarium plants currently in the market making it an ideal choice for those new to planted freshwater aquariums. It is equipped with versatile 6500K LEDs that provide high lumen output for medium to high light plants.

Finnex Ray2 provides stronger lighting than other LED lights in the market and can grow various types of aquarium plants from low to high light ones. Its dual trips of 7000K LEDs provide high PAR output for growing even the most highly demanding plants in your planted aquarium. It comes in a variety of sizes to fit the needs of various aquarium types and sizes.

The Finnex Stingray is the best choice for low light plants such as anubias, bolbitis, fern, mosses and other aquarium plants belonging to this category. Its spectrum is the combination of three different light colors to achieve great viewing and plant growth benefit. The 7000K LEDs provide bright white light to lighten up the entire tank while the 660nm Red and Actinic Blue LEDs enhance the color of your aquarium inhabitants. The 660nm Red LEDs are proven to provide true wavelength for photosynthesis activity of aquarium plants.

Beamswork is known with its LED lighting products that are reliable but usually come with prices nearly cheapest in the market. Beamswork EA Timer FSPEC LED is also a very cheap and reliable LED light that is ideal for starters’ tanks with low-light plants. The lumen information of different fixture lengths is provided in the following table.

Finnex FugeRay Planted+ aquarium LED features a slim design giving your aquarium a sleek and attractive appearance. It offers two lighting modes, daylight and moonlight. The very bright daylight with 660nm RED LEDs is ideal for growing aquarium plants. It is specifically designed for medium light aquarium plants. Beside to the daylight, it features an innovative moonlight technology that gives off an elegant light for evening or night time enjoyment. The moonlight mimics the realistic light from the moon at night for the health and vitality of your aquarium creatures.

Lumen and PAR information of this LED light is available for you to calculate what and how many fixtures are perfect for your planted aquarium. Based on the PAR information from the manufacturer, you can consider that the light provides enough light for high light aquarium plants in the middle section of the tank (see the following picture).

The 1 watt 6500K white LEDs provide your plants with the correct light energy for photosynthesis. The 3 watt RGB LEDs that provide 460nm blue which encourages the growing of freshwater plants, 660nm red which encourages “reaching”, and green which bring out the natural beauty of your aquatic plants.