Feedback on LED quantity/ratio 100g reef tank

[midwestE]

New member and totally new reefer over here and I'm trying to get my feet underneath me in regard to DIY led lighting.  I've read a ton of posts here and they've taught me a lot, but they've also showed me there's a lot more to learn. Hoping I can stand on the shoulders of some of you giants in regard to color ratios and such before willy nilly buying a bunch of led's and faceplant.

 

100g - 60" L x 18" W x 20" H reef tank

 

General Lighting Goals: 

• Flexible power/spectrum - Since I don't know a whole helluva lot about coral types and their needs, I'm hoping to design something that wont pigeon hole me.
• Multi channel - Ideally want each color on their own channel for use with a multi channel controller
• Fair budget - $400-550 range all in

 

LED Amount/Ratio - I used the LED fixture calculator (by HansRic - maybe outdated)

• Royal Blue - 40
• White - 20
• Violet - 20 ( Seem high? )
• Blue - 10
• Turquoise/Cyan - 7
• Deep Red - 7

 

104 total leds - 312w .  How's this look as a start?  My next step would be looking into actual configuration from from blueacro, stevesleds, and ledgroupby

 

Thanks for all the informative posts.  Great community here and appreciate all the knowledge shared here! 

 

[HoffyZ]

I recommend to use the Bluefish mini controller. It can easily drive 6 channesl with LDDs and has wifi compatibility. The developer made nice app to setup, monitor your lights. The app has extra features like the clouds, storm, moonlight simulation with the dynamic sunrise/sunset time.

I had a DIY LED light project where I used and I love it. I have 24 pcs 3W Luxeon LED from Steve’s LEDs and still no issue with them. 

I bought the heatsink from Ledgroupbuy. The 6” x 20” premium heatsink might fit for your configuration and the frameless fan would give extra cooling option.

 

[midwestE]

10 minutes ago, HoffyZ said:

I recommend to use the Bluefish mini controller. It can easily drive 6 channel with LDDs and has wifi compatibility. The developer made nice app to setup, monitor your lights. 

I had a DIY LED light project where I used and I love it. I have 24 pcs 3W Luxeon LED from Steve’s LEDs and still no issue with them. 

I bought the heatsink from Ledgroupbuy. The 6” x 20” premium heatsink might fit for your configuration and the frameless fan would give extra cooling option.

 

Thanks for the feeback HoffyZ,  I'll look into the Bluefish controller.  The three options I was looking at for the bulk of the lighting are the 28-up from Steves http://www.stevesleds.com/PARmax5-28-up-LED-Array_p_365.html , the Blueacro Mega4Z 20k Blue https://blueacro.com/acrostar/ , and the Cree Lumia 5.2 https://www.ledgroupbuy.com/cree-lumia-5-2-70w-full-spectrum-5-channel-cree-led/

[HoffyZ]

36 minutes ago, midwestE said:

 

Thanks for the feeback HoffyZ,  I'll look into the Bluefish controller.  The three options I was looking at for the bulk of the lighting are the 28-up from Steves http://www.stevesleds.com/PARmax5-28-up-LED-Array_p_365.html , the Blueacro Mega4Z 20k Blue https://blueacro.com/acrostar/ , and the Cree Lumia 5.2 https://www.ledgroupbuy.com/cree-lumia-5-2-70w-full-spectrum-5-channel-cree-led/

The biggest consern with the LED lights the heat absorption. That reason I would not use none of them. I used the starboard LEDs where the board gives enough space for the normal heat absorption if you install on a heatsink. If you check the above links they have 70-40W what you can count as potential heat output. 

[midwestE]

My concern with individual leds is disco.  Diffusers?

 

Anyone have any direct experience with any of these in regard to a proper heatsink/keeping them cool? a makers 48" slim enough to keep 3 of these cool?

-28-up from Steves http://www.stevesleds.com/PARmax5-28-up-LED-Array_p_365.html 

-BlueacroMega4Z 20k Blue https://blueacro.com/acrostar/ 

-CreeLumia 5.2 https://www.ledgroupbuy.com/cree-lumia-5-2-70w-full-spectrum-5-channel-cree-led/

 

 

[stefanm]

I'm using luxeon k16's, very cheap from China, along with warm white and neutral white bridgelux vero's, I also have supplemental colours cool blue, cyan and violets (so more or less full spectrum). Heat sinks are 6x6" and 2" tall, the fans barely come on, I've set a thermostat to come on at 39 Celsius. Controlled by a diy version of storm x, 12 LDD drivers and a 350-48 meanwell PSU, cost me an equivalent of $350 with acrylic housing laser cut, up to 300 watts of light. The acrylic with laser cutting was quite expensive, so could have done it for less than $300.

 

Hope this helps.