While beginning to clear out the fish room this weekend we stumbled this interesting ‘relic’ from the dawn of LED lighting over our aquariums. This weird slab of aluminum and large light emitting diodes is the ALED or ‘Aquarium LED’ which was the second illumination LED light to be offered to the aquarium hobby after the fabled PFO Solaris LED.
The ALED used about 40 watts of power and was claimed to be as bright as a 175w metal halide, a feat which is believable with the efficiency of today’s LEDs but it was almost laughable back then. The ALED had only one color, about 6000K daylight and it had no ramping of overall intensity, let alone multichannel LED control.
Back in late 2008 the ALED was something to talk about but its $369 price would get you soooo much more LED lighting, power and features in one of today’s LED fixtures. It’s easy to chuckle at this light but remember the ALED is only 6 years old and the technology of LEDs and aquarium lighting has come an incredible way over that time; imagine where we’ll be in another five years.
Nevertheless, the ALED was an interesting solid state lighting offering from Coral Dynamics which was not exactly practical but yet it still jump started the conversation of LED lighting marine aquariums that continues to this day. [ALED]
