LED Aesthetics: What do you really think of your color?

[NeveSSL]

Thanks for the reply!

 

That's awesome the pads come off so easily. I wouldn't have to drill and tap at that point, but could replace LEDs fairly easily.

 

Hmmm... I like the idea of glass better, but mounting it becomes a bit more of a challenge than would be with acrylic. I'll have to noodle on that one.

 

Thanks again!

 

Brandon

[Machupicchu]

Whats up man,

I think the general consensus was that the cool blues do a good job at covering most of what the cyans pop, also the cyans can be overpowering and turn your tank to windex. Also, reds have worked in some setups, but have been shown to be overpowering like the cyans and can even inhibit coral growth, and like the cyans can cause horrible disco balls and spot lighting. Its best just to let the neutrals do their job.

If you feel like more warmth would be needed just replace some Cool whites for Neutrals, i honestly dont think youl be disappointed with the CW NW CB RB setup, it looks awesome. It also keeps things simpler.

I havent tried TV yet however, with four you might notice an impact on color and your corals will love it.

[NeveSSL]

Nice, man. Thanks for the reply.

 

I think I will probably focus on CW NW CB RB and maybe add TV, Cyan, and Red later on to play with on separate, controllable drivers.

 

Brandon

[DaveFason]

Dont go with Cyan. Just use Blue's.

 

-Dave

[Genj]

Dont go with Cyan. Just use Blue's.

 

-Dave

 

Hey, didn't you sell me your Cyan LEDs? *grin*

[NeveSSL]

I definitely will to begin with. What do you think about reds, Dave? I believe the NWs will take care of most of that, but it might be fun to experiment. I'm almost certain I'm going to do the TVs, though.

 

Brandon

[DaveFason]

GenJ - And for cheap

 

Dont do reds either. Evil said something about this in the beginning and its 100% true. Over powering and blah! Let the NW do the work.

 

-Dave

[NeveSSL]

Cool... thanks Dave.

 

Ok, so now that I've had a chance to sit down and calculate some things out, what do you guys think about this final count:

 

13 RBs, 4 CWs (XP-Gs), 6 NWs, and 2 CWs on 2 Meanwell ELN-60-48Ds for an Oceanic 30g cube, no optics?

 

I'm a bit concerned about the XP-Gs being so much more efficient. I may need to only do 3. I've got 11, though. Has anyone tried XP-Gs with the other XR-E colors yet?

 

Brandon

[blasterman]

If you want to add some red it makes more sense to use warms. They blend better.

[NeveSSL]

Thanks, blaster. I may order one to throw in.

 

Do you guys think a 9"x6" heatsink would be ok for 24 LEDs? I'm thinking about grabbing the one from RapidLED that's pre-drilled and tapped. Only $30. I'd throw a yate loon 120mm fan on top of it. I'd rather do screws and arctic silver than anything else since I'd like ease of exchange. Otherwise I may do 2 4.25x9 heat sinks instead. Hmmm...

 

Brandon

[dhraakoxr]

Soooo anyone have an opinion on the results of using the NWs and TV's yet? My white tissued SPSs (only my green SPSs had this problem) are no longer white tissued anymore thats for sure. I'm waiting until they completely come back to their coloured state before I take pictures.

 

Whether or not it was the NWs and TVs that did this I have no clue. But I went from my BC14 with the CB/RB/CW setup where these SPS's have been white skinned (only the green coloured SPS's) for 3 months to this JBJ28 with the TV's and NWs and within a week of changing those LEDs they are changing. Coincidence?

[beeker]

IT probably has to do with the intensity of the lights being less on your JBJ 29g than anything else

 

So far even with my PAR38 setup i have not raised my photoperiod over 8 hours...and even now i just raised the lights about another inch and started doing a split photoperiod, on for 4 hours then off for 1 hour and then back on for 3 1/2 hours...so at 7 1/2 photoperiod at the moment and things seem to be looking a lot better colowise

 

i've been able to keep a red planet frag of SPS at the very bottom of my 200g and it's growing at 33 inches away from the bulb, it led me to believe leds are insane when it comes to output and thus has made me alter some of my approach, i still use Cool white, Neutral white, Cool blue and Royal blue for my color, although this solves 98% of color issue's proper coral placement in a LED is nesscessary if your looking for the best color, though i do still have about 5 sps frags that are just plain brown, i'm not thinking it's the LEDs cause these frags never had good color even when they were under a MH setup but i'm still trying my hardest to improve their color although it may be a loss

 

i've had to move some sps frags 3 or 4 times in my tank before i found out if they like higher or lower light, or more cool blue vs more royal blue...some purple sps have better color under the royal blue and some purples have better color under cool blue

 

Green sps in general always do great under cool blue

[dhraakoxr]

Thanks for the input. I still need to give things time and see where it all goes from here, hopefully it all becomes how I expect it to be lol. My blue SPS are getting bluer to, super happy about all this colour changing .

[jfarabaugh]

ITS COMING SOON

 

This is a picture from outside my house. The light is on the floor of my office with the blinds and the curtains shut. It is so bright I literally need to wear sunglasses in the room to avoid seeing spots and seeing in B&W for the next 10 minutes. Even better is the fact that I hit it with my cheapo spectrometer and I got the full visual spectrum with pretty even strength throughout…violet through red and ALL the colors in-between.

 

[dhraakoxr]

ITS COMING SOON

 

This is a picture from outside my house. The light is on the floor of my office with the blinds and the curtains shut. It is so bright I literally need to wear sunglasses in the room to avoid seeing spots and seeing in B&W for the next 10 minutes. Even better is the fact that I hit it with my cheapo spectrometer and I got the full visual spectrum with pretty even strength throughout…violet through red and ALL the colors in-between.

 

 

hahahah it looks like a window from some cheap sci-fi or horror movie lol. Need tank pictures!

[rockryno]

i tried, but i just couldnt get through 27 pages of this discussion. I am very intrigued by this topic though. Im planning on running 12 leds, no optics, and Id like to see what you guys recommend for led combo and placement? Using Cree XREs - thinking 4 RB, 4 CW, 2NW, and 2CB. both blue and white sets dimmable.

 

Thanks, and sorry if its been discussed previously

[redfishsc]

On a 12 LED setup I'd simply use 4 neutral whites (preferably XPG if you can find them) and 8 royal blues. The simpler, the better IMO.

 

You'll want to space them closer together and then use a combination of optic angle and distance from the water to get the spread you are wanting. This will help greatly with color blending.

[NeveSSL]

2 blues may give you Windex water. Probably one blue would be better for just 12.

 

Brandon

[jfarabaugh]

hahahah it looks like a window from some cheap sci-fi or horror movie lol. Need tank pictures!

 

not over the tank yet... testing still

[cptbjorn]

wats with this "windex" water people keep throwing around? have the people who are saying this even seen a tank in person with the windex water?

 

i have a fixture i made that's just 6 blue and 6 cool white over a picotope and evilc made several with the same setup including one over el fabs pico and it doesn't look bad. i can see cyan starting to look weird but the cool blue and royal blue are right next to each other with only 5-10nm difference.

[evilc66]

I've always used royal blue LEDs. 470nm blues make a huge difference in overall appearance, and I would never use them by themselves. It really can turn a tank into windex. There is no depth to the color like you get with royals. My very first fixture that I ever built used Rebel blues. That lasted a week, as I hated it. It looked like I was running an XM20K on a crappy ballast. Very flat.

 

With the commonly available royals from Cree being D3 groups (450-455nm), there is a 15-20nm difference to the blues (we have been getting B4 group blues, which is 470-475nm). You wouldn't think 15-20nm would be that big of a deal, but it really is.

[doctaq]

ive seen a windexy tank, there is some commercial fixture that has cool blue crees in tubes like the panaorama strips and comes with some kind of fancy controller

[cptbjorn]

huh, all my blues are just the dealextreme ones and for some reason I thought thats what was in the ones you built evil.

 

i've gotten 15 of them and two were unusable cyan, one was orange (!), 5 or 6 were middle blue and the rest were just barely distinguishable from royal blues I've gotten. they have shady quality control on them that's for sure.

[blasterman]

It's interesting how sensitive our eyes are to just a few nano-meters difference of blue. 460 to 470 and were whining about 'windex' colors, etc.

 

Yeah, cool-blues / standard blues.....however you want to label them aren't aethestically attractive on their own, but they do pop colors in a unique way.

[rockryno]

just ordered 8 RB and 4 NW for a 10 gal. will post pics when its done!