My DIY LED Fixture V2.0 cluster redesign plan

[phasezero]

Very nice write up. I kind of feel that adding the Tq and the DRs are LEDs that take a little bit of time to actually see results from. Coral can take a while to color up and I think that adding TV, TQ, and DRs contribute to that long term color up. I know I wanted a huge immediate color boost, but that's really rare. I mean, when I was using T5s, it took a while for my corals to really get the most out of a Fiji Purple when I added one so why would adding a small amount of exotic LEDs be any different?

 

Good point about the long term color change of corals. I don't know the science behind it, but I will have to take some pictures 1 or 2 months from now to see if there are any long term color changes. My only concern is that these corals have already been running under all neutral whites which already cover some of the red spectrum, and therefore causing no change by adding the 660 deep reds.

[Paleoreef103]

Good point about the long term color change of corals. I don't know the science behind it, but I will have to take some pictures 1 or 2 months from now to see if there are any long term color changes. My only concern is that these corals have already been running under all neutral whites which already cover some of the red spectrum, and therefore causing no change by adding the 660 deep reds.

If you look at the spectrographs from cool whites and neutral whites you'll see they peak so far in front of the 660 nm mark that there is almost no deep red light being put out. There is some red there, but not much. The 660 nm peak can be important to some types of photosynthesis with the zooxanthellae. You should see a color up over the course of a few months. The coloring up has to do with increased availability of that photosynthetic peak to the zooxanthellae (I'm a PhD candidate studying the skeletal morphology of corals).

 

I love the look of your tank though. I really looks kind of like a Radium+ VHO actinic set up and that's high praise.

[phasezero]

Just a small update to the build. I was concerned with the temperature of the the heatsink as it was too hot to touch after a few seconds so i was keeping the light levels down. I finally stopped being lazy and added two Yate Loon 120mm 80 cfm fans to the fixture. Now the heatsink is barely warm.

 

I also took a video so you can see the LED's in action and see how shimmer and blending is with this new fixture. I also included a link to the old NW/RB fixture .We got rid of the frag rack and placed all the corals on the rocks to help clean up the tank. We also added a mini wild acro colony from my 55g sps tank that has been the only coral to not thrive in there.

 

Fans Added

 

Recent Tank Picture

 

 

OLD fixture using NW and RB only. Look at the disco effect at the sand bed.

 

 

NEW redesigned fixture - Shimmer is reduced but the color blending is much better and shimmer still exists. Around the 1:45 mark I dim the whites to about 25%. You can select 720 or 1080 for this one.

 

 

Just for reference. You can compare them to my Kessil 10k A150W over my 20g Long. Can view in 720 or 1080p also.

 

[Milad LEDGroupBuy.com]

Very very nice

FYI you could have gotten away with just one 120mm fan.

[phasezero]

Very very nice

FYI you could have gotten away with just one 120mm fan.

 

Oh ya most definitely. I knew they were going to be overkill. I had a box of these laying around that i bought for my PC so I figured what the heck. Every time I walk pass the tank and down the hall way I get blasted in the face with air. I'm definitely going to switch to a quiet single fan though, these are borderline vacuum/hair dryer sound territory.

[phasezero]

Very very nice

FYI you could have gotten away with just one 120mm fan.

 

Oh and damn you for coming out with that heatsink, causing me to keep making wish lists of a setups for my own 55g SPS tank that I can't afford. I've been so jealous because this light fixture is for my fiance's tank, not mine . Even though her tank is pretty much mine, it's still not the same lol.

[ajmckay]

Oh and damn you for coming out with that heatsink, causing me to keep making wish lists of a setups for my own 55g SPS tank that I can't afford. I've been so jealous because this light fixture is for my fiance's tank, not mine . Even though her tank is pretty much mine, it's still not the same lol.

 

 

Haha, I hear you. Fortunately I haven't started my LED build yet. While this heatsink is 2x the price of a normal one, I would probably spend more than the 2x the difference in fabricating an enclosure myself...

[phasezero]

Just wanted to make this post to fix all the broken picture links from earlier for anyone who might come across this thread.

 

Here is a side by side of the old setup on the right.

 

All colors BUT white. This is a good example of how all the different colors come together to create somewhat of a white. Makes the corals pop like crazy.

 

All colors @ 100%

 

All color @ 100%

 

Whites ~30% / Blues ~ 75% / Turquoise + Red ~ 40% / True Violet ~ 100%

 

Top is mandarin under NW/RB. Bottom shows what Red/Turquoise do. This is one month of nutramar ova feeding.

[phasezero]

Here is a recent video of the tank with our new HD Panasonic V500M camcorder. You can get a sense of the growth if you compare the picture in the last post which was taken beginning of may, to the beginning of the video taken mid june. So we're looking at 1.5-2 months of growth. Don't forget to watch it in 720 or 1080p.

Next time we use the hd camcorder we'll focus more on the corals and tank views rather than close ups. We were just messing around with our new camera in this video.

 

 

Some updates of the tank under the new lights

-My staghorns which are green with blue tips in my 4 bulb T5 SPS tank are starting to turn completely blue in this LED tank.

-The wild mini acro colony from my T5 sps tank has lightened up a bit and lost some of the brown coloration. It has also repaired all of the STN patches.

-The orange digitata looks peach/red in this led tank.

[like-fish]

great thread, great results! Thank you for sharing this and keepin it updated!!!!

[Paleoreef103]

Based on what I'm seeing here and what I saw in the 72" full spectrum build by Milad I think the answer is really starting to be less white leds (or at least turned down in current) and more DR/TQ/SB and TVs. Those shots of corals under all LEDs minus white positively leap from the screen.

[phasezero]

This tank has actually changed quite a bit since the last time I updated. It's been upgraded to a deep sea aquatics Neo Nano 34g. The transfer has been rough on the corals as the tank has been going through constant changes such as flow, filtration, and substrate swap. The corals have declined a bit but we're making some huge upgrades soon. To keep the topic focused on the light, I will be completely doing away with this fixture and upgrading to Ledgroupbuys makers heatsink along with some completely new LED's.

 

My reasons for upgrading once again:

 

-The new tank has a 24" L x 24" W x 12" H. I want to raise the fixture and use optics this time around to keep the light in the tank and increase PAR.

 

-I never liked the idea of using epoxy to secure LED's, especially with how much things change with LED's. There is always new products and I love the idea of being able to just de-solder the old LED rather than have to take a chisel to the mounting star and messing up thethe heatsink and LED in the process.

 

-I want to replace the LED's because many of the LED's from the very first build, had their lens trashed due to my use of superglue to attach the optics. This definitely had some affect on the LED.

 

-I'm going to add more color once again. I'll be trying some luxeon ES's this time around along with some cree's.

 

I will probably start another build thread in the next week or so. I'll be taking a ton of pictures as usual. Stay tuned.