Hold on to your hats Reefers because this LED thing is about to take off in a big way. Econlux, a German manufacturer of general and industrial lighting has figured out a way to make an LED light which is powered by the ballast of your stock power compact, T5 or T8 fluorescent tubes. We’ll just let that sink in for a second. Can you imagine the flood of reefers who would become LED converts if they only had to buy a new tube instead of a whole new light? With the bewildering array of lights on the market driving fluorescents in the T5, T8, T12 and PC formats at NO, HO and VHO levels it will be a while before they can sort out all the labeling required to make sure these lights are properly installed in existing fixtures.
Also, since Econlux is coming from an industrial lighting sector all of their lamps are warm white for now, but at InterZoo they connected with many reef aquarium companies seeking to OEM their bulbs into the range of colors that T5 lamps currently afford us. There’s still currently a lot of what-ifs regarding this plug and play LED lighting technology but with the milions of fluorescent light fixtures yearning to drive LEDs, it’s probably only a matter of time until Econlux partners up with the companies that deliver products to your LFS every week.
