planning diy led build

[pheonixsoul25]

Ok guys never done anything with leds, I have a 65g tall, set up running two 150 watt. Hqi mh. About time to either buy new bulbs or upgrade lighting. Looking at several kits but before I make any choices how many leds do yall think I will need ? And is it worth the extra money to make the leds dimable ? I want to start keeping sps but right now I have lps and softies. So let me know what I need to know before I get started please and thank you !

[zemuss]

Bump.. I am curious too.

[pheonixsoul25]

well i have an idea of what i want to build, thinking about 40 to 46 3 watt leds figured if i made them dimmable it would be better for light aclimation on new corals and i could tweek the coloring too. along with getting away with a fixxed height of the fixture.

[Milad LEDGroupBuy.com]

A good rule of thumb if you are going with the 3w CREE LEDs (more if you are going other brands usually) is 15-20 square inches of surface area per LED. If you are keeping softies, you should be closer to 20 and if you are keeping SPS you should be closer to 15.

 

On your tank, you should look at around 36-46 total LEDs with 60 degree optics and fixtures about 8 inches from the water. You would want everything on dimmable drivers so you can dial in the color. You also will be able to do a sunrise sunset if you get something like the DIM4

 

Most reefers are doing about 2 XT-E Royal Blue per 1 XP-G Neutral White and putting these in pods and spacing them across a heatsink.

[saltohio]

Most reefers are doing about 2 XT-E Royal Blue per 1 XP-G Neutral White and putting these in pods and spacing them across a heatsink.

 

Truth that.

I did a diy LED for my BC29 (10 XT-E Royal Blue and 10 XP-G Neutral White).

The whites are very bright and over power the blues, so you end up turning down the whites

and cranking the blues. I'm adding 2 whites and 10 blues, heat sink will be quite full

but currently the generated heat is less than the 72w stock lighting.

[smai-tai]

Truth that.

I did a diy LED for my BC29 (10 XT-E Royal Blue and 10 XP-G Neutral White).

The whites are very bright and over power the blues, so you end up turning down the whites

and cranking the blues. I'm adding 2 whites and 10 blues, heat sink will be quite full

but currently the generated heat is less than the 72w stock lighting.

 

Been thinking of doing this myself! I run my whites at about 65% and the blues at like 80% or 85%.

[saltohio]

Been thinking of doing this myself! I run my whites at about 65% and the blues at like 80% or 85%.

 

How you doing?

I love the LED'S, but would like a little more white and ALOT more blue.

Our drivers will support 12 whites, so it will be simple to add 2 more.

and the controller will support a 3rd channel, so 10 more blues.

I don't know about, but heat is not an issue even running both channels at 100%.

did you tweak srv2 yo to 900Ma?, I did, it makes a nice difference.

[pheonixsoul25]

A good rule of thumb if you are going with the 3w CREE LEDs (more if you are going other brands usually) is 15-20 square inches of surface area per LED. If you are keeping softies, you should be closer to 20 and if you are keeping SPS you should be closer to 15.

 

On your tank, you should look at around 36-46 total LEDs with 60 degree optics and fixtures about 8 inches from the water. You would want everything on dimmable drivers so you can dial in the color. You also will be able to do a sunrise sunset if you get something like the DIM4

 

Most reefers are doing about 2 XT-E Royal Blue per 1 XP-G Neutral White and putting these in pods and spacing them across a heatsink.

thats what i need just a good solid break down ! straight and to the point. and the optics were one of those things i forgot to brng up thanks.

[WI Reefer]

A good rule of thumb if you are going with the 3w CREE LEDs (more if you are going other brands usually) is 15-20 square inches of surface area per LED. If you are keeping softies, you should be closer to 20 and if you are keeping SPS you should be closer to 15.

 

On your tank, you should look at around 36-46 total LEDs with 60 degree optics and fixtures about 8 inches from the water. You would want everything on dimmable drivers so you can dial in the color. You also will be able to do a sunrise sunset if you get something like the DIM4

 

Most reefers are doing about 2 XT-E Royal Blue per 1 XP-G Neutral White and putting these in pods and spacing them across a heatsink.

 

Hey I have the same footprint 36x18x21

 

could you get away with 24 leds 2:1 ratio of royal blue and white and keep it 4" off the surface and still be good with sps and get good coverage?

[Milad LEDGroupBuy.com]

Hey I have the same footprint 36x18x21

 

could you get away with 24 leds 2:1 ratio of royal blue and white and keep it 4" off the surface and still be good with sps and get good coverage?

 

24 LEDs is on the low end and you would need to go without optics because of how few LEDs you would have. That means deeper down in the tank you go there will be less light so you could keep SPS towards the top of the tank.

[Adam_T]

http://www.rapidled.com/servlet/the-Solder...ries/Categories

 

 

RAPID LED offers full plug and play units now for DIYers. You just plug in the LED's and mount them to a heatsink, plug in the driver and turn it on. No soldering or messy wiring or mistakes.

 

I would recommend 36 LED's for both of you who have the 36x18x21 setup with 80 degree optics, 4-6'' off the water level. 80 degree optics are all you need to penetrate 20'' to the sandbed and have amazing PAR numbers, not to mention...this will give you better color blending than 60 degree optics and enable you to use less LEDs (36 instead of 48).