5.5 gallon nano

[gobywonkenobi]

Here is my new 5.5gal nano sps reef to be. What do you guys think? I am upgrading the light to a 40x3w cree LED next week. It will have 21 wpg. The filter is an AC50 with phospad and chemipure elite.. I will also have a Hydor Koralia nano 240 in it tomorrow. I got the rock and sand from my 40 gal mixed reef. What do you think?

 

[KafudaFish]

Looks good but I think you may melt your sps. WPG really is not a good measurement for lighting since all a watt measures is energy consumption.

 

[gobywonkenobi]

What should i get for a light if i want a sps dominant tank? I want an LED fixture

 

[KafudaFish]

You could probably do a full spectrum par 38 bulb if you wanted plug and play.

There are two (probably more now) that are out. One is dimmable but you cannot do the individual colors. You dim the entire fixture.

Another option is a DIY using a DIM4 to drive and to control the 4 channels of 3 LEDS per.

You could get some 3 ups (3 leds in a single bin such as royal blue-royal blue-neutral white). Each channel can be dimmed independently of the others.

There is a write up on another reef forum that goes into details about this.

Both of these options would run under $150.00.

Personally I have no experience with these though I have run a par 38 over my 5.5 for a year now. I have read about this exact situation and these are the recommendations of others.

Normally I don't like suggesting things that I haven't tired myself but with my reading and asking questions this is the direction I hope to be making soon.

There are numerous other choices for production stuff and others could make a better educated suggestion than I could but hope that helps.

 

[GOSKN5]

I second the Par38 bulb.. one would probably cover it nicely... I just got a rapid LED par38 bulb and the colors are great...

 

[gobywonkenobi]

Rapidled has 3 par38 bulbs on their website. Which one do you guys think would be the best for sps? I like a little bit of a blue tint to my tanks. Also what fixture do they need?

 

[gobywonkenobi]

Also what lens width is best? 60 or 80 degrees. I am leaning towards the 12 led mixed bulb. I see now that they just screw into a regular light socket... Does that mean i would need to hardwire the light socket into a wall plug? I live in an apartment

 

[GOSKN5]

I have the 12 led mixed bulb, actually two of them over my 30 cube... the color is great, it brings all colors out in the tank, and has a slight blue tint with lots of shimmer....

you dont have to hardwire anything in, you can use a fixture that just plugs in.. simple as that... there are a bunch of options for fixtures and how to hang it... something as simple as a clip on light or something hanging from the ceiling or build an arm or rack to hold them... (i built one for about 10 bucks)

 

[GOSKN5]

BTW I got the 60 degree lens and I think one with the 60 degree would cover your tank nicely... it would need to hang about 12 inches or so above the water

 

[GOSKN5]

sorry, also forgot to say that you could probably grow just about anything you want with of these over a 5.5.... they are powerful

 

[gobywonkenobi]

I want a PAR38 bulb now, but I only have 9 inches of room above my tank because i want it on my kitchen countertop under the cupboard. Would this melt my sps? the bulb would be about 13 inches above the LR where the sps would be. Would a PAR30 from boostled be a better option?

 

[gobywonkenobi]

Ordered a 6 LED solderless retrofit kit off of rapidled.com yesterday. I also ordered 2 extra LEDs so I will have 8 LEDs overdriven and 2 moonlights. I went with 3 CREE Royal Blue, 3 CREE Cool White and 2 CREE Violet UV. I am making my own heatsink at work to save a couple bucks. I will post pics as soon as its over the tank!

 

[gobywonkenobi]

Here is the pattern i decided to go with. RB=Royal blue, white= Cool White, Purple= Violet UV and LB=moonlights. The kit should get here on monday. Ill put them on the heatsink and post pics. I have the machined heatsink hanging over my tank right now on a DIY PVC stand.

 

[gobywonkenobi]

Here are pics of the tank with the PVC stand for the light and the heatsink hanging. The second pic is of the painted heatsink with hangars in it to hang from the pvc. It took 1.5 hours in the cnc machining center at work but i saved a little money on it. My boss gave me the chunk of aluminum for free!

 

[codyreef29]

I am going to do a upgrade to 5.5 In the near future and am going to double my lights.
The light ( 1nw 4cw 2b) I have will grow sps but I need more flow and the little 2.5 has no room for powerheads. I will go from 7 leds to 14 over the 5.5 3 nw 7 cw 2 b 2rb.

 

[gobywonkenobi]

14 leds over a 5.5 is way overkill. Rapidled reccommended 6-8 of them to grow sps

 

[gobywonkenobi]

Update:
Got all of my LEDs wired up and I have all of the wiring hiden in the pvc stand. I am extremely happy with the solderless retrofit kit that I purchased from RAPIDLED. It was so easy to assemble and kinda fun actually. The colors and shimmer I am getting from the fixture are awesome. Now all i have to do is buy some SPS frags to fill it in. Any thoughts to what I should put in it? I know I want some acans but I dont know what I want for hard corals yet. What do you guys think?

 

[gobywonkenobi]

Here are some pics taken with my phone