I have been wanting to upgrade the lighting in my Nanocube 12G ever since I got the tank from the seller last year. The tank currently has a CurrentUSA Single Satellite 40W light on it. When I saw the tank from the seller I was surprised to see he had a clam in their. It just didn't seem to have enough light but he did put it close to the top so I guess the clam is surviving. I think a lighting upgrade will help him look a lot better. A rework of the tank is in order after the new LED lights are in place.

The decision to go with LED over metal halide was an easy one for me. It was an even easier decision when I found out Nanotuners.com had a LED retrofit kit for them. The whole drilling/tapping of the heatsink and soldering work was what put me off from tackling a LED project. This kit took care of these two for me and they did a great job at it.

Unfortunately I did not realize the kit was meant for the Nanocube DX model and I found out mine is the older generation model. I got the kit a couple of weeks ago and of course the heat sink holes did not work for my OG canopy. Luckily I was able to find a solution to the heatsink mount as well as a new splashguard.

I got everything working and hope to have pictures up soon. The only problem I have was one of the Silenx fan I ordered did not work. I'm going to need to send it back and get another one. I'm running one Silenx fan and one stock fan right now and the Silenx fan is definitely quieter. My wife will hate the noise from the stock fan so I'm going to have to get that other Silenx fan exchange fast!

Hope this will help other who have the older generation NC to consider this LED kit for their lighting upgrade because I think it is a winner!

One last thing, I have to thank Nick from Nanotuners for all of his help thus far.

Cheers,

-Alex

I too just installed the 3.6 into my BC14. I'm AMAZED at how much the colors of the corals have brightened up since I put them in (previously just using the stock lighting) and how much more stable the temperatures in my tank has become (about 1.0 degree of fluctuation now vs. up to 4 degrees of fluctuation). Another great thing is that some cyano that I've been fighting is all but gone now (stock bulbs getting older with possible spectrum shift...)!

Oh, and Nick was a ton of help to me too. GREAT customer support from those guys!

I'm glad to hear you're seeing some positive effects on your tank. I can't wait to put mine into action. I may have to wait until I get the replacement fan to replace the stock fan. The noise from the stock fan will drive my wife nuts!

Here's a picture of the heatsink mounted in the canopy. I basically made a square frame and used the hole from the heatsink and the canopy splashguard holes for the mount.



The spacers on the heatsink is for the splashguard. The splashguard is just a piece of plexiglass cut to fit the lighting area and fans.

-Alex

blittster,

What was your stock lighting? Did you have do any lighting acclimation?

I plan on using only 2 50/50 strips for the daytime light and the third strip (blue) for the dawn/dusk.

I'm going from 40W PC light to the 2 50/50 strips LED. Would that be like going from 40W PC to 70W metal halide? Can the LED gods chime in?

im also ready to order this kit and was wonderign what light strip combos everyone is running currently.

I was thinking of going 50/50's on the outside and maybe a daylight strip in the mid.

I went with the 2 50/50 on the sides (daylight) and all blue in the middle (dawn/dusk). I think the 2 50/50 is still a vast improvement over the 40W PC I have right now. How much better I don't really know until I put it into action.

The good thing is if I need more, there's room to add to it.

Here's the picture of the canopy with the LED installed.

I went with all three strips as 50/50. I think the color is pretty close to a 14K Phoenix MH bulb. Previous to that I just had the stock PC lighting in the hood, so I did do some acclimation for about a week: I had Nanotuners give me the Meanwell driver and a variable voltage adaptor so I was able to increase the intensity from 3V to 10V over the week which seemed to work just fine. The best thing about the change from the stock lighting is the intense colors that my corals are developing that was not there before and also the disappearing cyano that I was fighting. So I guess that's two things! Oh, and the temp is much more stable. Three things! So far...

hmmm that sounds pretty good, any pics of that setup? Id like to see how you have the drivers/power supplies wired in.

blittster,

How hot does your ballast box get? I did a test run of my light for about 1.5 hrs and could feel some warmth on the box. I took my IR thermometer and it was registering around 96 deg.

I'm wondering how high it would get with 8-10 hrs run and if holes should be made on the box to let the hot air out.

I'd bet most of that heat is from the transformer inside the drivers that steps down/converts the wall power to the DC power for the actual LED driver circuitry and LEDs to run off of, probably wouldn't hurt to cut some slots or holes or something to let some passive air cooling to occur.

I wouldn't even worry about it. 96F is nothing.

thanks for this thread guys, I went ahead on ordered the 3.6 kit for my nc12dx yesterday. I kept the stock drivers as I have some left over window screen at home and figure Ill just use that for acclimation.

I also went with 3 rows of 50/50 strips, I seemed to like how those looked best with the pics posted throughout this site. If its too blue ill replace the middle strip with an all daylight strip down the road.

I think you will like the color of the 50/50 strips. That was my original plan. I only went with 2 50/50 and 1 all blue because I wanted to use one of them for a dawn/dusk effect.

Even with 2 50/50 strips, I think I will have more light than my current 40W PC setup. The good thing is if I needed more light I can always add to it.

I think you are right as most people on this site only run 12 LED's but this kit comes with 18. I hope the Edison strips are a little less intense for that reason, and I think they are looking at the specs.

I am right there with you coming from the stock 48w PC lighting in my cube.

I got my replacement fan installed and am currently acclimating the tank to the new lights. Even with two window screens on, I can see the shimmers the LED lights are creating. I'm just running the two 50/50 strips at the moment. I hope my corals and clownfish doesn't get freaked out over the shimmer. It looks like someone put a strobe light on the tank. I may have to redirect the pumps to reduce the surface waves.