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Coral Vue Hydros

How many 3w LED


giannone

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So i have been looking into building a small frag tank and want to try my hand at a DIY LED build. I have seen a lot of good things from Aquastyle online kits.

 

My question is How many LEDs to use? 12x3w 8x3w?

 

I don't have dimensions on the tank but it will probably be a 5g or the standard 5.5g.I know LED can't be converted to Watt per gallon. Any info would be appreciated. Thanks.

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I should have mentioned i want to keep anything in it

meaning like anything you want? like sps, clams, etc?

 

6+ leds should still be enough IMO

 

oh, actually how far are you planning on hanging them from the surface?

 

if you want to be safe just go with 8

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Yeah Clams all that good stuff. Again I'm not sure how tall the tank is but lets say i have the lights 18 inches from the bottom of the tank. Does that help?

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If you go with 12 that will def be overkill so turn the light down or you will smoke mushrooms. I really think 16 LED's is too many.

 

also depends on if you get the new cree led's or not because they are 10 percent brighter

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If you're able to dim them, it shouldn't matter how many LEDs you have. Just get enough LEDs to get the color/coverage you want.

 

FWIW, I had 12 LEDs on my 2.5 gallon.

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that driver is non dimmable if you email ray he will make a deal happen w/ the dimmable driver as well.. 12 should be plenty... i have basically 1 led per gallon over my 40b and my sps is doing fine (only have one right now.. after all the disasters it survived.. and i hope it makes the move cuz it looks really pretty :)

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... I stand corrected - that's not a bad deal... you'll still need to find a heatsink

 

Heat Sink: http://www.rapidled.com/servlet/the-217/4....Aluminum/Detail

 

Heat sink (4.25'x8') is an additional $10.00, otherwise you get the precut wire, optics, Arctic Alumina adhesive, every thing you need. But the botton line is you are going MeanWell / CREE and Rapid LED (Mike) is second to none in customer service.

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Heat Sink: http://www.rapidled.com/servlet/the-217/4....Aluminum/Detail

 

Heat sink (4.25'x8') is an additional $10.00, otherwise you get the precut wire, optics, Arctic Alumina adhesive, every thing you need. But the botton line is you are going MeanWell / CREE and Rapid LED (Mike) is second to none in customer service.

 

Ray is pretty well off with his customer service as well - always throws in a little extra off of the purchase too - just in case.

 

The other side.. you wont have to tap all the holes for a CREE setup going with the bridgelux. No one doubts the power of the CREE's...

 

That entire kit upgraded to the Mean Wells would probably total out to be 10-15 dollars less then the Rapid LED kit shipped on this one - in most cases that does not stand true unfortunately.

 

As i said - i stand corrected in regards to the price on this particular kit.. But i wouldn't be surprised if some of the Cree vendors are starting to come down in price to compete

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So i have been looking into building a small frag tank and want to try my hand at a DIY LED build. I have seen a lot of good things from Aquastyle online kits.

 

My question is How many LEDs to use? 12x3w 8x3w?

 

I don't have dimensions on the tank but it will probably be a 5g or the standard 5.5g.I know LED can't be converted to Watt per gallon. Any info would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

i am running this kit http://www.aquastyleonline.com/products/Aq...IY-LED-kit.html over my 3 gallon picotope and in just 2.5 weeks have noticed growth in my sps :D love the kit and the results are great. a standar 5.5 gallon is probably the same depth as the pico tope so i would say the kit would be a good fit for that tank. and the heat sink it comes with is just under a foot long so i would imagine it would be a great fit :) see my picotope reef thread in my sig for the build :)

hope it helps

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