LED LIGHTING for Discus

[Joseph.FK]

Again, I like to thank people in this forum in helping out the newbies like us. I like to ask 2 questions about LED lighting. I may have missed the thread on my search but I would like to get a more concrete answers.
1st - Does LED enhances the color of the discus. I am in the process of setting up the tank. I thought LED is better. Does others have any opinion about LED and regular White lite. Since LED have so many light option, I was thinking about color LED to bring the color out on the discus. It was going to be a DIY set up.
2nd - I know too much light is not good for discus but is there certain light that help their vision out, especially the albino one. I read a few thread that says they might be near sighted. I thought may be certain LED color give the albino a better chance at feeding like every one else. My tank will be a bare bottom with white styro-foam underneath the tank. No background on the sides. Thank.

[MendoMan]

Check out buildmyLED.com all your questions will be answered.

[Joseph.FK]

Oh great. A lot of info there. Thanks.

[jmf3460]

I am a fan of aquatic life's edge series LED. I own two now, one on my wild discus tank and one on my low tech planted tank.

[Jack L]

I use current USA satellite plus Pro, i can create any color i want with it, and yes i different colors of light make the fish look different, better/worse is subjective. i can also reduce brigthness. it is like mixing water colors to get any color you want, but just easier.

at this stage in the game, i would non even consider anything EXCEPT led lighting.

[Joseph.FK]

Jack, do you think the LED would affect the discus feeding vision? I really like the albino and I want them to compete with the other discus well.

[Jack L]

I would be guessing, maybe someone on board has albinos that can chime in.

[MendoMan]

I have a couple albinos and I have LED lighting. I've never noticed anything different with them than any other of my fish.

[Hart24601]

I use LEDs for my tanks. Couple of things are nice:

1st is tunable spectrum. Can play around with what looks good to your eyes without changing bulbs. Different color temps will look a bit different with different strains. For example really shiny blue strains look good under higher K numbers light that puts out more blue. Why? Because the blue we see on the fish is reflected to our eyes from the light.

2nd is nice for some and not others, but the cluster style LEDs have amazing shimmer. I bought kessils specifically for this reason. You still need some surface agitation to bring the shimmer out and you can reduce shimmer by reducing surface agitation, but I like it.

3rd, if you want plants LEDs are much dimmer to our eyes (and presumably the fish as well) for the power they have. Very common in the reef world people who used to run MH lights think their tanks look very dim with LEDs but the PAR is the same because, in general, LEDs don't have as much green in the spectrum which looks bright to us. So you can have a dimmer looking tank and still have power to grow plants.

There are other factors like heat/energy usage too, but those are my favorite reasons for LED.

[Joseph.FK]

Thanks MendoMan and Hart24601. I try to read the thread but info still did not come out as good as a direct response from you guys. Appreciate your help.