Hello all,
I have been a long time follower of this forum but I haven't made an effort to give back to the community. So here is my attempt, I hope some of you members will enjoy this.
I moved this 120 gallon to its current residence a year ago today...it had been in its previous home for 9 months. When I moved the aquarium here I was running all of the same equipment except for lighting, at the time I was running 2 x 250 watt metal halides 20k XM on PFO ballasts. For actinic supplementation I had 2 x 65 watt Power Compact actinic.
Come September 2012 I had a choice to make about lighting since all of my light bulbs needed to be replaced and I really wanted to dabble with LEDs for the first time. I decided on going with a LED setup that was not commonly used but I thought would be an affordable and an efficient light source.
Here are the pics with the seven par 38 led bulbs I chose to go with:
Now fast forward to mid February me being me....I start pondering perhaps I should try building my own led light. One of the main reasons for this change was due to the fact that several of my friends would come and see my aquarium and would comment that the cree leds are so much brighter and superior to the bridgelux and I had to see for myself.
So remember with par 38s I had 7 bulbs with 12 leds in each to get me 84 leds that were currently over the 120. I believe the bulb breakdown per par was 7 Blue, 4 cool white, and 1 red.
I decided on going with rapid led for the new light build and ended up ordering:
48 x Cree XT-E RB w/ 80' optics
24 x Cree XP-G R5 5w w/ 80' optics
I had traded with a fellow hobbyist for the - Mean Well HLG-185-42B dimmable Driver.
I mounted the leds on a 3' heatsink and suspended the light 12" off the water.
Here are pictures of the aquarium almost two months after replacing the par 38's with my DIY LED build.
Other than my lighting changes I haven't changed anything else with the setup of my aquarium I use the following equipment.
Vertex 170 alpha cone
Knop Calcium reactor
Kalkwasser top off Spectrapure Litermeter
Filter socks - replaced twice a week
Spectrapure dual cannister media reactor - gfo and carbon.
Fish:
Blue Tang
Scopas Tang
Sailfin Tang
Scissortail Goby x 2
Squamii Anthias x 1
Blue Chromis x 2
Exquisite Wrasse
Purple Wrasse
Melanarus Wrasse
Percula Clowns x 2
Bangaii Cardinal
Green Clown Goby
Lamarcks Angel
Chalk Bass
I have been toying around with lowering the intensity of the led the past few weeks because it seems that some of the acros on the left side under less light are actually becoming more vibrant and richer in colour compared to the same colonies I have directly underneath the light.
Any comments or suggestions are greatly appreciated,
Patrick
I have been a long time follower of this forum but I haven't made an effort to give back to the community. So here is my attempt, I hope some of you members will enjoy this.
I moved this 120 gallon to its current residence a year ago today...it had been in its previous home for 9 months. When I moved the aquarium here I was running all of the same equipment except for lighting, at the time I was running 2 x 250 watt metal halides 20k XM on PFO ballasts. For actinic supplementation I had 2 x 65 watt Power Compact actinic.
Come September 2012 I had a choice to make about lighting since all of my light bulbs needed to be replaced and I really wanted to dabble with LEDs for the first time. I decided on going with a LED setup that was not commonly used but I thought would be an affordable and an efficient light source.
Here are the pics with the seven par 38 led bulbs I chose to go with:
Now fast forward to mid February me being me....I start pondering perhaps I should try building my own led light. One of the main reasons for this change was due to the fact that several of my friends would come and see my aquarium and would comment that the cree leds are so much brighter and superior to the bridgelux and I had to see for myself.
So remember with par 38s I had 7 bulbs with 12 leds in each to get me 84 leds that were currently over the 120. I believe the bulb breakdown per par was 7 Blue, 4 cool white, and 1 red.
I decided on going with rapid led for the new light build and ended up ordering:
48 x Cree XT-E RB w/ 80' optics
24 x Cree XP-G R5 5w w/ 80' optics
I had traded with a fellow hobbyist for the - Mean Well HLG-185-42B dimmable Driver.
I mounted the leds on a 3' heatsink and suspended the light 12" off the water.
Here are pictures of the aquarium almost two months after replacing the par 38's with my DIY LED build.
Other than my lighting changes I haven't changed anything else with the setup of my aquarium I use the following equipment.
Vertex 170 alpha cone
Knop Calcium reactor
Kalkwasser top off Spectrapure Litermeter
Filter socks - replaced twice a week
Spectrapure dual cannister media reactor - gfo and carbon.
Fish:
Blue Tang
Scopas Tang
Sailfin Tang
Scissortail Goby x 2
Squamii Anthias x 1
Blue Chromis x 2
Exquisite Wrasse
Purple Wrasse
Melanarus Wrasse
Percula Clowns x 2
Bangaii Cardinal
Green Clown Goby
Lamarcks Angel
Chalk Bass
I have been toying around with lowering the intensity of the led the past few weeks because it seems that some of the acros on the left side under less light are actually becoming more vibrant and richer in colour compared to the same colonies I have directly underneath the light.
Any comments or suggestions are greatly appreciated,
Patrick
