So I'd need 4 x Royal Blue Cree XR-E Star and 4 x 107 Lumen Q5 Cool-White Cree XR-E Star and I'm good to go for Acros/SPS?

For lighting, yes. After that, it's all up to you to keep your water quality in check.

Okay, thanks for the help everyone!!

Few questions that I might have missed answers too, I did read quite a lot of pages.

1) How are the optics attached to LED and are they easily removable/interchangeable.


2) All PAR levels comparisons within the thread are to 70, 150 or 250 MH bulbs, how does that compare to PAR levels of T5s.

1. Depends on the optic. Cree optics are press-on. Some other manufacturers have legs that have to be glued down. The Cree optics are easy to swap as required.

2. T5s vary a lot with bulb and reflector combinations.

http://www.ledwholesalers.com/store/index....p;productId=512

thoughts? I'm thinking the PAR numbers are too good to be true.

Not implausible. It's 119 LEDs on a 16" long fixture. What they aren't telling you is that it's probably running 45 degree optics to hit those numbers. It's a really high density array. If they used the same spacing that we normally use for the LEDs, the PAR numbers would be dramatically lower.

Evil is RIGHT about the water quality on a 2.5.

The problem won't be keeping the water clean. That's easy as cake on a 2.5g.

The problem will be keeping the water STABLE. This is really for another thread, but I'll offer my $.02 here.


I have a system with about 45g of water (25g, 20g, 5g fuge, 5g "sump").

It's all I can do to keep it stable enough for acros. They grow, but not fast. Water quality is nearly perfect. 0.0ppm nitrates (salifert), 0.05ppm phosphate (seachem kit), mag/calcium/alk all stay in range.

Growth is slow. I watch the same coral from the same mother colony grow in my buddies 240g tank, and they grow literally 5-10X faster. Light levels are similar.

In a 2.5g, the temp, salinity, and nutrient levels will see-saw like crazy, so don't expect a tremendous amount of growth. They will survive, but likely not go "weed" on you.

OK here is the question then.

I currently have a 6 foot current nova extreme with 12 T5s over a 180G tank. My tank is pretty much only softies with few LPS. What kind of fixture are we talking about to provide enough light for softies in such large tank.

THe tank is 72 x 24 x 24

Thanks.

This will not be cheap. No way around that.

To get full coverage, you are going to need about 180 LEDs in a 30x6 array (2" on certer per LED and 3" on center per row). The only thing seperating this from a light just for softies and a light capable of sps is the optics, which are the cheapest part of the whole deal. what many people don't quite get just yet is that the number of LEDs required is for coverage, not for intensity. You could be looking at about $2500 to build this.

Yah, yah. When you refer to spacing (like above), are you using center-point to center-point of the LED? Then 80deg optics for 18" of water + 4" of air (height above tank).

Assuming center-point, for my retrofit I'm building on a 5.375" x 17" heatsink with three rows with eight LEDs each (alternating XR-E royal blue Cree and XR-E Q5 white Cree). Staggering would be possible, but I would end up with either a blue-dominated end or a white-dominated end. [Or XP-G whites...?]

That means two Meanwell drivers as that seems to be the current flavor.

Sweetness. Thanks for the thread and everyone's contributions!

Oh, ok. Thanks!!

I have a few more questions. How much would it cost to build and how many LED's would I need for a 180 gallon mixed reef? I have SPS as well, so I need them to be strong enough for SPS/Clams, ect. The tank dimensions are: 60" long, 26" wide, and 27" high. How long will the LED's last/keep its intensity if done properly? I think I read 13 or so years? Also, how many watts is each LED? Thanks in advance!!

ok so 6 rows with 30 LEDs each, Each star is about .8" across so lets assume they are 1 inch. Distance between the stars in the row is 1" (2" center of led to center of the next) and 2" (3" center to center) between the stars in different rows. The rows would of course be offset.

Using 2 separate fixtures (heatsinks) with 3 rows each it would require that a heatsink be at least 7" wide. The next size up at heatsinkusa is 7.28" . At $26 per linear foot it would cost $312 for 2 x 72" pieces, going to 8.5" would add about $30. 10" wide heatsinks would cost about $500 for qty. 2 6-footers.

To drive 180 LEDs it only make sense to use meanwell drivers and I have seen some LPC-35-700 for around $25 so about $375 for 15 of them. Each will plug into mains and drive 12 LEDs at 700 mA. Correct me if I am wrong and give recommendations as to using possibly different model or place where they can be cheaper.


Now for LEDs how much can I expect to pay and what combination and exactly which ones in what quantity should i buy?

Also, what is an acceptable operating temperature of an LED. If the fins are to be exposed to room temperature would it absolutely require fans to move air across the fins?

Here is a top view of the design with ~7-8" wide heatsink. Top is 72"x 24"

Please correct is this is not what you meant.

Click to view attachment

You are picking things up pretty fast bderen. Your layout looks good, and you are dead on with the heatsink setup. I wouldn't use the LPC series. No dimming capabilities. The ELN series (specifically the ELN-60-49D) is dimmable from a 0-10v source, so either via manual control, or via a reef controller like the Reefkeeper series (with the ALC module). It can take up to 13 LEDs in series, so you would need 14. It's a little more expensive per unit, but it offers so much more flexibility.

Fans would be a good idea no matter what. Cooler is better for the LEDs. Heatsink temps would be fairly high without fans. Still within spc, but I'd save that as an emergency backup. It doesn't take much airflow to drop the temps quite considerably.

Bump.

You will need about 144 LEDs (48x6), with at least 60 degree optics, but you might want to throw in 40 degree optics in a few key areas where you need more light. Life with the LEDs cooled properly is over 13 years (assuming 10 hour/day light cycle). Cost? Budget for at least $2K.

Okay, so do half blue and half white? Whats are 60 degree optics? Sorry, I'm a LED newbie. lol Can you give me a link to 60 and 40 degree optics please? Do you know how many watts a Cree® XR-E LED uses?

LEDs to supplement T5s for shimmer... thoughts?

Do me a favor, start reading at the begining of this thread. It explains a lot of the things you are asking. Maybe not the wattage issue, but that's easy. A Cree XR-E is a 3W rated LED, but the true wattage is determined by the drive current. If you run the LEDs at 1000mA, that's 3.7W (volts x amps = watts).


Can be done. Is your T5 setup a fixture or a retro into a hood?

My buddy has a tek 6 bulb fixture and there is a wooden canopy encasing around it all.

I am putting a parts list together for a LED setup and I read somewhere you need 2 seperate power supplies for the blue and white LED dimming. Doesn't really make sense to me

I am looking to run 4xRECOM (1A) drivers off one 36V power supply. If I control color twmp with the RECOM by PWM input wouldn't I just have all 4 drivers hooked up to one 36v 4A+ PSU?

PSU
|
|---- RECOM LED Driver ------ Royal Blue LEDs
|---- RECOM LED Driver ------ Royal Blue LEDs
|---- RECOM LED Driver ------ Cool White LEDs
|---- RECOM LED Driver ------ Cool White LEDs

You could add the LEDs around the fixture, but ideally to get the best effect the LEDs would need to be in the Tek fixture. You could use some of the cheap flexible LED strips you can find on ebay with a tight viewing angle and just run them around the edge of the tank if all he is looking for is shimmer. If he needs additional color or PAR, then it's going to take a lot more effort.


There is only a need for seperate power supplies if you want to do timer based dawn/dusk effects.

Is it possible to use led's for main lighting for a 125 gallon tank?

I use all LED's for my light on my 120! So far so good. Its almost to bright and I have them dimmed to 70%!

What does something like that cost to make if one bought all the supplies?

He's not trusting the ebay LED strips to be able to outwork the T5s and be visible.

Hello,

First off I want to thank Evil for helping us all on LED technology, his knowledge is impressive.

I'd been reading this tread and the others talking about LED projects and I've been convinced to make my own LED system for my tank.

I have a 24 gal tank that is 17" wide and 19" deep.

From what I've read here and there, here's what I'm planning on getting :
- 12 Cree XR-E White Q5
- 12 Cree XR-E Royal Blue
- 24 optics (60 degree)
- 7.29" x 12" heatsink

Now, I have a couple of questions regarding the heatsink and the drivers :
- heatsink : that might be a stupid question, but I have to ask anyway : all heatsink people are using have their fins on the L-axis (this is not very clear, but for example, for a 7.29" x 12", fins would be 12" long). Would it be a problem (heat removal talking) if it was on the W-axis (that means that the fins would be 7.29" long) ?
- drivers : Meanwell's drivers seem to be an easier to mount and cheaper solution to get compare to BuckPuck. Now, Meanwell's are not dimmable. I have 110W PCs right now and I'm afraid it would be a little of a shock for my corals to go directly under LEDs that powerful. Is there an other solution to make the transition more comfortable for them ? Is using dimmable BuckPuck the only solution ?

Did I miss anything in my list ?

Thanks a lot in advance for your help !

(PS : I'm french so my english isn't perfect!)

The viewing angle will be key. Wide angle LEDs will just get washed out and will barely be noticable. Tight angle LEDs will definitely be noticed if all he is looking for is shimmer. If he refuses to go with the ebay strips, it's going to take a lot more money, and a lot more work to get the effect he wants. At the very least, the ebay strips don't cost much if it doesn't work as he hoped.


I won't hold it against you Don't worry. Your english is better than some native english speaking members on this board

So, with 24 LEDs, you are looking to arrange them in a 6x4 setup? Seems like it makes the most sense based on your tank dimensions. With a 19" height, you can use 60 degree optics, but depending on you livestock choices, you could go wider, or use none at all. Optics are cheap, so you can experiment with them at your leisure.

There is nothing wrong with the fins on the short axis rather than the long. It's harder and generally more expensive to find heatsinks that way though.

Meanwell drivers are dimmable, but not all of them. The ones that we have been using so far are the ELN series which have options for pwm input ("P" model, good for DIY controllers) or 0-10v ("D" model, good for manual control and interfacing with reef controllers). As far as cost, it's a toss-up between the Meanwells and the Buckpucks. With a 24 LED array, you save a little with the Meanwells, but it's not a night and day difference.

I appreciate your reply there EVIL but need the above answered as well. What is the best/cheapest place(s) to obtain these.

call etg tech (www.etgtech.com) ask for Anna Lopez.
this is the place to get ceapest LEDs as well as the optics.
you can also get them at nanotuners (one of our sponsors here) and the price is real close.
a lot easier to order through nanotuners. so support our sponsors if you can. the difference in LED price is negligable.
you can get the meanwell drivers from nanotuners too.

Deep gave you part of the answer there, but seriously, with all the info that is in this thread and all the others on this board, you haven't picked up on which LEDs to use? 95% of everyone here uses the same two LEDs; Cree XR-E Q5 cool whites, and XR-E royal blues. I don't mind helping, but there is a point where I have to stop spoonfeeding everyone the same answers. I'm not trying to be a dick, but this is information that has been gone over a billion times. Start reading.

Thank you for your reply evil

Actually I'm hesitating between 2 options for the drivers :
- 4 x Wired BuckPuck Drivers 1000mA External Dimming Control w/ Potentiometer, wich implies to get a PSU
- 2 Meanwell ELN-60-48D, which is available on nanotuners.com : what does it take to dim it ? Does it only need a pot or what (power supply) ? Do you have an example of what I could use ?

Has anyone an idea of the shipping costs to France (I might have too much hope on that one !) ?

Also on nanotuners, they have what they call "thermal pads". What is its used for : fastening leds to the heat sink ? It is strong enough to avoid screws ?

Thanks again !

There's a thread dedicated to the Meanwell drivers.

+1

The "D"s are pretty easy to use. For manual control, you will need a 10v power supply (low current, so they can be very cheap) and a 10K ohm pot. The nice thing about these units is that you can also interface them with controllers that support a 0-10v output, like the Profilux series.

You can get an estimate on your shipping cost right on the site without having to commit to an order.

The thermal pads are a double sided, self adhesive thermal material that are designed to replace bolting the LEDs down. It doesn't work quite as well, but it works well enough, and it's far less labor.

What about a power supply that already proposes several output voltage levels (1.5V up to 9V) ? I wouldn't need any pot right ?

For that dimming control, can I wire the 2 Meanwell driver in parallel to only one power supply ? Or do I need a separate power supply for each driver ?

I understand your frustration and agree with you.....but at the same time I have read so many posts about people asking about gazzilion different LEDs (rebels, red, UV blah, blah etc) that it was all a big mess in my brain. I just asked for your to clear it out and I appreciate it. As stated earlier I did read most of this 60 pages long thread. I took few hours and I was able to understand most of it, I just wanted you to confirm what I already learned so that no wrong parts are ordered (it would be a somewhat expensive mistake)

I need to wire two 40mm silenx fans, can one of you guys help me figure out which wire is +,-, ground?

also, the fans are 12v, 20mA, I can run two of them on a 4.5-12v 300mA ac adapter right?

Ok I want to go LED's BUT can you get a nice deep color with LED's that you can with MH? I have a small tank 19"x19"x12" that I can get away with about 20-24 LEDs maybe even 18 because it only has a 15"x15" area where corals or going to be(nothing on the edges). It seems that every LED tank I see the sps in the tank don't seem to be very dark in color?

I understand. There is a ton of information. Reading through some of the builds will make it more obvious that we are primarily using Crees. You don't have to. As long as you can get something that is equivalent if Crees aren't readily accessible to you, you are fine.



Depends on the tank and the sps. I think many of us that are diving into LED tanks are not dosing as well as would be needed for a many heavy sps setups. There have been some of us that have been able to keep very good color though once dosing is straight. Sherman has a good representation of colorful sps under LEDs

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...=178207&hl=

You can find the majority of the pictures in the last three pages.

Evil, have you considered setting up an LED calculator, so folks could type in the dimensions of their tank, and the engine could cough up a general guide to how many/what kind.... and a "purchase list" of what they would need, including the drivers, recommended LED's and optics, etc...?

Esp. since dimmable drivers give us a LOT of wiggle room for error (too much/too little), and for the most part people are wiring up the same LED array---- a 50/50 mix of Q5 and rb driven by either buckpucks or meanwells. Include a link to some info on soldering and a general "must have" list of solder, wire, soldering iron, etc....



You could call the page "the Gospel of Light According to Evil" (boy does that sound crazy).

When you get the "how many, what color, and which LED" you could forward them to the calculator.

Maybe Christopher would let you use NR.com or perhaps Nano-tuners.com.

^^^

also, can i wire the entire thing to a 24v adapter or will that fry my fans?

Hey Evil,

Can you teach me everything there is to know about electronic design? I can spare a few hours to become an expert.



You can use your 12vdc adapter for the fans if they are wired in parallel and your stated current draw and current supply is correct. You can also wire the two 12vdc fans in series and use a 24vdc supply. This is very basic electronics and is best learned from a few semesters of study in the field. The best option of the two, IMO, is the parallel route. One fried (open) fan will not kill both fans if they are wired in parallel.


Good luck!
Mike

Im a chem major. I know a lot less of physics than I should =(

Evil, regarding what you said the thermal pads from nanotuners.com, does it mean it won't be necessary to screw the LEDs onto the heatsink ? That means no drilling right ?

I see your problem now. The 40mm silenx fan wiring does not seem to be color coded. It is my understanding that the wiring on the plug is as follows.... with orientation pins on the sides of the connector pointing up AND the the wires running away from you out the back of the connector, the wires should be (from left to right) black, red, yellow. The yellow is a control signal from the computer and is not used in our application. +12vdc goes to the red wire (center pin), and gnd goes to the black wire (left most pin).

Power requirements appear to be 12vdc @ 40ma. Two fans wired in series would require a 24vdc @ 40ma (minimum) power supply... two fans wired in parallel would require a 12vdc @ 80ma (min) source.

My assumptions are based on this information...
40mm silenx fan

HTH
Mike

yep no drilling. tapping o screwing down