Coralife Biocube 29 -> TrueLumen LED upgrade

[jamescstein]

I recently acquired a used BioCube 29. I had already purchased a TrueLumen Nano LED upgrade that was going to be put into an old Biowheel 10g all-in-one I've got sitting around. Instead the kit went into my BC29. The kit installs fairly painlessly. Though I could have gotten the parts I needed cheaper than the 'kit' I think and wound up with more light.

 

 

Stock hood.

 

 

 

I've stripped the electronics out except for the circuit board and transformer and stock fans. I wanted to leave them in place in case I needed them. I moved the connectors from the non grounded power cord and the leads to the transformer for the fans over to the LED 1 switch. The single circuit board has 2 separate sections, one controls the little LED strips and the other controls the fans.

 

 

I cut a piece of acrylic to mount the LED bars on. I was more worried about the light placement than ease of installation. You can probably tell I can't mount the plexiglass to the hood without removing one of the LED bars. Just a 1/2 inch over and I could have rotated the bar and mounted the acrylic. The acrylic is mounted to the same holes that hold the aluminum reflector for the CFL's that came in the hood.

 

 

Acrylic mounted to the hood. Mounting the other bar was a PITA with the acrylic mounted in the hood. If I were to do it again I would make sure that the LED bar isn't blocking the mounting points.

 

 

Both bars installed.

 

 

I split the grommet to run the power cords through. I gave up trying to force the barrel connectors through the hole. I am sure you can do it, the cords aren't too large to fit, but I spent about 15 minutes trying and gave up. I am eventually going to squirt some silicone in there anyway to seal that up good once things are settled.

 

 

The whole the original CFL power cord passed through was too small to fit the barrel connector through. I suppose I could have drilled it out larger, its not like it needs to be watertight there anyway. Instead I drilled some holes in the support bar so I could zip tie the cords out of the way.

 

 

Cords zip tied out of the way so they don't interfere with the skimmer.

 

 

Cover re-installed, as you can see there is plenty of room in there. I could install 2 more LED bars if I wanted. The power supply that came with my kit can drive up to 4 bars.

 

 

Both lights at 100%. I also sprung for the dual ramp timer.

[jamescstein]

I sent a message to Current asking them about the PAR rating of the dual 12" upgrade kit..

 

 

Current USA - Support, Dec 24 09:15:

Dear Hobbyist,

Thank you for contacting us. If your keeping higher light demanding corals such as LPS or SPS, you would want to use two sets (4 total.) A single set produces around 35-50PAR, two sets would give you closer to 100 PAR.

Sincerely,

Current-USA, Inc.

 

 

Based on that information I've added a second Marine Fusion and another actinic strip to the hood. I've alternated them starting from the front fusion/actinic/fusion/actinic. My original acrylic mounting plate wasn't large enough so I had to make another. This time I cut out a hole for the front vents on the hood and also was a tad more conscious of where the mounting points on the hood were. I had to rotate the 1st and 3rd strip to screw the plate down, but it was better than trying to put the strip into its mounting brackets while the whole thing was in the hood already.

 

[GHD1959]

I bought the truelumen Nano led kit for my Biocube 14 and am having trouble with where the intensity levels should be set for each of the two light strips. I have been searching and asking all over and can't get an answer. I have softies and lps coral as well as inverts and fish...One strip is a deep blue strip and other is a Marine Fusion strip White/blue. The are on a dual ramp timer and original moonlights fro tank are on all the time until midnight for 6 hours darkness. Can anyone there give me some insight?

[jamescstein]

Its honestly hard to say. In my B29 I have 4 strips, 2 fusion and 2 deep blue. Channel 1, deep blue, is set to 70. Channel 2, fusion, is set to 65. I started at 30/25 and added a level each day till I hit 55/45 and stayed there for a while. All zoa's and softies. I added a grape monti frag and it browned and kind of just sat there. I also added a rainbow monti and a chalice and both of those didn't do much either. Slowly increased to 70/65 and the montis and chalice started coloring up again and growing. I may even go higher with the lights and see if I can get the grape back to what it looked like when I got it, I just stopped at the current level to take stock and see how the higher lights affected my zoas, palys and softies.

 

Depending on what sort of light you are coming from you'll want to start small and increase the level depending on the reaction of your coral. The fish could probably care less about the lights. I don't know about the stock led strips I don't think they are very bright at all, but you might want to turn the on right before your lights start to ramp down and not leave them on all day, though it probably doesn't matter in the long run, all the stock stuff save the fans and transformer needed to run the fans got stripped out of my hood.

 

The key will be finding what your corals like, These lights aren't super bright you may find you need them on full blast for sps.