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Cultivated Reef

Optics for LED's over pico


mmelnick

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Two questions...

 

1) What degree of optics would you guys recommend for a few 9 watt LED bulbs over a 5 gallon reef tank.

2) How many bulbs?

 

I'm just looking at these cheap ebay lights.

 

I have used some of these over a freshwater planted tank and it did well and I ordered a single royal blue and it gave amazing color over my frag tank. They offer a 10K or a 20K option (one white and 2 blues or 2 whites and one blue) and I'm thinking about ordering a few of each. I couldn't get a good light mix using blue bulbs next to white bulbs.

 

This will be a standard 5 gallon tank with mostly zoas. There will be a few shrooms and other softies and very limited easy to keep SPS.

 

I'm thinking 3 of these 9 watt bulbs. What do you guys think?

 

 

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This style of LED bulb has to have them. I bought a few of these in white and when I tried to remove the optics I realized that it is actually holding the LED onto the heat sink with pressure. There is a thermal paste that would probably solidify after it heats up a few times I guess. But they aren't soldered down to the heat sink.

 

The options for optics are 30, 45, 60, 90 and 120 degrees.

 

Is there much difference between 120 degree optics and no optics?

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Is there much difference between 120 degree optics and no optics?

 

Although it depends on the manufacturer, most beam angles of LEDs without optics is going to be between 120-140 degrees.

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Great. So how many of these bulbs would you put over a 5.5 gal? How about a 2.5 gal?

Bump...

 

Decided to go with the standard 2.5 gal tank. How many LED's would you put over it?

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