Led light good or bad?

Brentholey

Established Member
I am brand new at this hobby I am trying to get my enclosure right before I get a chameleon to go into it. I have one of these lights from an old fish aquarium setup. I grew live plants with it in the aquarium. My question is can I use this light to grow plants in my chameleon enclosure? Will it be ok for the chameleon? Sufficient for plant growth? The enclosure is 54”H 30”L 20”W. I have ficus benjamina, Schefflera, Boston fern, and Pothos so far, might add a hibiscus... thank you for any info or suggestions.
https://www.amazon.com/Beamswork-65...works+led+30”&qid=1565051206&s=gateway&sr=8-6
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That should be awesome for plant growth! It should be okay for your chameleon as long as it cycles on and off with the heat/basking lamp and the linear UVB light.
 
I say heat/basking because I doubt that will provide sufficient heat being an LED but I have never personally used an LED fixture that wide or long or at all for a cham!
 
Thanks I have on order a Flukers 8.5" Ceramic Clamp Lamp and Exo Terra 75 watt Daylight Basking Spot bulb to go in it for heat. And for uvb I got the 30” zoo med repti-sun 5.0
 
54" H? That's pretty deep for an LED hood topside. If most of your plants are embedded at or near the bottom, I would think you might need the quad linear hood.
 
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Highway61, I’m not so worried about the Pothos down low as it doesn’t need a whole lot of light but I don’t have any experience with ficus or Schefflera. The top cross member is 11.5” from the top of the cage.
 
54" H? That's pretty deep for an LED hood topside. If most of your plants are embedded at or near the bottom, I would think you might need the quad linear hood.

I agree thats deep, and this light wont cut it but as to Flos thats not how PAR works :p.

So a Quad fixture, for a 30 inch cage is going to run you 4,560 Lumens, fresh bulbs. T5s lose quite a bit of light output the first few months, and then slowly lose more, so reduce that by 10% over the life of the bulb (about a year) on average.

That Beamswork DA is 4800 lumens, Zero loss, thats already more light than a Quad T5, for less wattage and less heat. 60ws vs 40ws. Also remember he will still need a Single T5 for UVB, so we have 1140 lumens, on top of the 4800, thats almost 6k lumens vs the Quads 4k.

The PAR for either will be utterly pathetic, and that Schefflera forget about it lol, Hibiscus, ya isnt going to happen. Not with that height with that light. The Ficus is tall, and may be okay. The fern doesn't like bright light and the pothos is pretty uncaring, they will be fine kind of. That said I dont see the Fern, and why is the pothos on floor?

A little ground cover is cool, but the cham will rarely go there, those plants need to be hanging, at least the Pothos, where the cham can actually use them.

So now, super deep cage, get light down the canopy. You have 2 options, way more light or directional light.

You have to remember that Beamswork is made for a small fish tank, they dont have depth and depth is the enemy of light. I have 5k Lumens in my 18inch tall bug vivs, and they are 18x18x18.

Easiest way, would likely be the Beamswork, in the frontish area, with a T5 in the backish Area (The UVB) with a Flanked, Basking light and 2 Jungle Dawn Spots. This will give you about 14k lumens, and lots of light down in the middle of the cage and decently lit floor.

What do I mean? Here.
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That will net you decent lighting, with out spending too much, and should allow higher light plants to thrive. You can adjust the JD spots accordingly, closer to the basking or away to cover the cage, 4 may prove more optimal if you can swing it, but 2 is a good start.

Second option, Holy Lumens Batman :). Just make it super bright in the canopy, so the PAR will travel. I run 45k Lumens in a 4x2x4. You can do this with Custom built COB arrays, it can be simple and cheapish to complex and expensive. If you go this route, I would run a 4 COB Flank, and mix reflectors as needed to get your light right. You could also use COBs instead of JDs (better) and add reflectors as desired, 80-90s would likely be fine and give good canopy spread. JDs are 60 degree, but they are half as bright as the COBs I would use.

If you find the Beamswork doesnt light the back half enough in canopy top and gives shadowing the UVB cant conquer, you can double the beamswork, and push the UVB back, the Beamsworks are pretty slim and it would improve gradients with proper placed branches, allowing UVB only, Basking and UVB and Basking only. You could also drop the beamswork, and replace it with a 6500k flo in front to fix the mismatched lighting issues. They will give good top level illumination with the spots, to provide even lighting.
 
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@cyberlocc thank you for the detailed explanation! I was worried about the beamsworks maybe being too bright for the chameleon lol, I guess not. I have two questions what do you mean by 6500k “flo”?<— I am infamilar with that term. And do you know of any good how to informative sites that explain how to make the COBs?
As for the plants I put the Pothos in the bottom because I wanted to eventually train it to grow up the trunk of the ficus I have another more mature Pothos I have not added yet I want to hang near the top because it is about 5-6’ long. I also have not added the fern yet because i just bought it and need to repot it, I wanted to hang it near the top but maybe a better option to place on the floor.
 
@cyberlocc thank you for the detailed explanation! I was worried about the beamsworks maybe being too bright for the chameleon lol, I guess not. I have two questions what do you mean by 6500k “flo”?<— I am infamilar with that term. And do you know of any good how to informative sites that explain how to make the COBs?
As for the plants I put the Pothos in the bottom because I wanted to eventually train it to grow up the trunk of the ficus I have another more mature Pothos I have not added yet I want to hang near the top because it is about 5-6’ long. I also have not added the fern yet because i just bought it and need to repot it, I wanted to hang it near the top but maybe a better option to place on the floor.

Your welcome :)

It might take the cham a little getting use to very right light, but it will be fine, and loved in time. There was a member here, a long time ago who use to use like 12 t5s on 30 deep carpet chameleon cages, and said he seen better activity from the chams than using just 2. Thats what set me on my lighting hiatus, to learn all about LEDs and Plant lighting, that had me studying in the deep dark web of shady forums with people who grow high dollar plants lol.

It makes sense, when you think about it, think about a dim cloudy rainy day and how it makes you feel vs a nice sunny bright day. The Sun on a bright day, is pretty insanely bright, your electric bill would hate you trying to recreate it, you would need 100,000+ lumens to replicate a sunny day.

We also have something to contend with the Fish and Pot guys dont, Screen, the Screen on the top of our cage reduces a lot of our light.

6500k is a Color temperature, its pretty neutral daylight, go for 5600-6500k range. Flo is short for Florescent, like a T5 tube light.


Easy COB Build, The EZ Bright, COB LED Fixture


Oh thats a neat idea for the pothos to climb, cant wait to see it :)

Ya the Fern would like lesser lighting, and lots of humidity, they can get pretty big as well, bottom, or lower would likely be best, with all your big trees on top :).
 
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