High Tide Aquatics

Cheap refugium light?

looking for a cheap light to grow algea(cheato) not looking to spend $200+ for a brand named light just to grow cheato. Has anyone here had success with growing cheato or any other algea in a sump using a cheap light or even a diy light? Would love to know your experiences and suggestions.

Thank you in advance.
~Hamada
 
Amazon lights are going to be a good bang for your dollar, but do take the description with a grain of salt as quite literally every off brand LED light that is sold on Amazon absolutely lies and tries to mislead customers on what it's properties are. For instance the one MonkeyReefer posted.

UFO Led Grow Light, Growstar 150W Full Spectrum Plant Light with High Par Value Cree COB and Switch for Indoor Plants Bloom Flowering and Growing

Holy crap 150 watt grow light?! Hell yeah that's some super growing power!!!!

Wait what's this say really far down in the description past all the pretty pictures including what it can do in much smaller font?
[Avg. Power Draw] 62±3%W
So yeah, you get about 1/3rd the power, which don't get me wrong is fine for growing chaeto, and compared to the "brand name" lights out there is still a great deal. But Amazon largely has a "I don't care as long as we get a cut of everyone's sale" approach to how honest sales are.

Even says in the "package includes" 1 x 150W Plant Light, which they're basically doing because they claim the LEDs are "5watt" leds, so they simply count up the max potential power of the LEDs even though it is literally impossible for you to pull that power with this unit, and if you could you would burn them out as this is Chinese Black Box quality of cooling solution.
 
Back before moving to brighter lights I was successful growing chaeto under a clamp light and a CFL for quite a while. LED is probably the cheaper route now, but it doesn't need to be complicated (even if I've made it so on my own tank since then).
 
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