DYI LED lighting Help

[spaniard]

First I would like to Introduce myself, I'm Jose new to this area and happy that I found this local site for my salty needs.

I've been settled into my new home here in the Ottawa area and I'm starting to rebuild my 90gallon mixed reef tank and need a little help for my DYI LED Project

I was thinking of going with a 48 LED Cree setup powered by 4 dimmable  drivers spread accross two heatsinks possibly 8.5 x 12". 24 LED's per heat sink

I want to have the 14k look not too blue and not too white and maybe some pink in there and run as a sunrise sunset setup

Any Help would be nice

What are you suggestions

[HomerJ]

Sounds similar to my build:

http://ovas.ca/forum/index.php?topic=49424.0

[jason1985]

I've read over your post and very nice build!
The only difference is that I want to be able incorporate some pink into my mix, not sure if I should link them up with my blues or have them powered on their own driver!

[HomerJ]

Having it on a different driver would allow you to fine tune the color.  If you don't glue your leds to your heatink, then it's not as important, as you can decide later to replace a blue with a pink or the other way around.

Do the pink and blues have the same mA rating?

[spaniard]

After some re-thinking I think my first LED build will be for my 24x24x24 tank as a test  before I decide to go with a full 48+ LED Setup
I'm thinking. I prefer a more WHITE over Blue look

5 x CREE XP-E Royal Blue 3W LED on star    

5x CREE XP-E Blue 3W LED on star    

8x CREE XP-G R5 Cool White 3W LED on Star    

3x Osram 660nm 3W Red LED    

3x CREE XP-E Green 3W LED on star

3x Mean Well ELN-60-48D dimmable driver

Not sure about the size of heatsink yet... Possible either a 8.5x12 or 6x16.

I have a ReefKeeper that I'll need to upgrade to control the dimmability

[gvv]

So, are you planning to put Reds and Greens on the same driver as you RB and B?

[spaniard]

No I plan on buying three drivers possibly four so I can have each color on its own driver. This will require to modulars for my reefkeeper so I can control all the colors separately


if not I'll go with three drivers

1 for blues
1 for whites
1 for red and green

[gvv]

6 LEDs on 48d would not work...
I also read se comments on reef forums that even 8 have some issues with dimming - best to start with 9

[jon1985]

I just finished building the LED fixtures for my 120.  To my understanding you dont want to over power the LED by to much.  So if your only running a few LEDs on a single driver you may need to turn them down so you are providing the right amount of power to each LED.

Just a thought, you may have already though of it.

[spaniard]

I plan on adjusting the drivers so they only supply the right amount of power is turned all the way up to 100 percent.

Maybe I'll even consider only two drivers
10 blues 4 reds one driver

10 whites 4 greens one driver

So each driver is powering a total of 14 led's.

At a later time I might add moonlights

[JetJumper]

Can someone explain the purpose of Green LEd's?  From all the research I have seen they provide no benefit at all.

[gvv]

Can someone explain the purpose of Green LEd's?  From all the research I have seen they provide no benefit at all.

To tell the truth - no idea, but I still ordered few and looks like rapidLed is out of stock of Green LEDs only.
I can understand red - also not so good if a lot of them, but Green..
Personally planning to put Red/Green on separate driver, so if I will find out that they don't benefit at all I will be able to turn them down before replacing.

[spaniard]

You guys prob know much more about LED lighting than I do so any suggestions would be perfect. Before I was using a 14k 150watt HQI with two tru actinic as supliment. I want LED for the power saving and heat saving and dimming features.

Maybe I shouldn't even bother with red and greens and just add a few moonlights for noctual viewing..

[JetJumper]

Red is good, I used that in my last LED build.  Don't know if there was any good effects from it, but I did use them:)  Green however, I personally would not waste the cost on Green led's as according to studies I have seen, Zooxanthellae does not react to green light, or if it does its minimal


http://www.springerlink.com/content/w42594m83n605113/fulltext.pdf

[spaniard]

What type of growth did you experience when you went to LED's.

See I actually like the fiji pink look of T5 I'm sorta looking for that look. I don't like the deep blue look

[gvv]

I saw several discussions where people were saying that with Reds they saw growth, but corals changed their color to brown'ish as Zooxanthellae natural color is golden-brown...

[gvv]

Regarding usage of green light over reef tank:
http://reefbuilders.com/2010/04/06/green-light-fluorescence-red/#more-17246