Biocube LED Brightness

[lordofthereef]

I started a thread in the DIY section but have got bupkiss for responses, so I will paste it here.

This is geared towards those who have retrofitted their Biocubes with dimmable LEDs.

I am running 2 strings of 12 LEDs (CREE XP-E) on dimmable meanwell ballasts over a Biocube 29. I have no par meter so I am sort of flying blind here. What I would like to know is what percentage people are running their strings. This is for SPS/clams.

I get polyp extension at 15% and at 60% (talking dimming/brightness here) so I am unsure where to set it (I haven't wanted to go higher than this as I don't want to burn my corals). I CURRENTLY have my blues set to 65% and whites set to 45% (I liked the color that produced). They ramp from 0% to their respective numbers over an hour and a half and then ramp back down over that same amount of time at the end of the night. Total hours of light at full brightness is about 8, plus the three hours of ramping (1.5 in the morning + 1.5 at night).

So with that long-winded explanation, I'd like to hear from those that are keeping a similar tank about what your dimming is set at, how many hours you run them, etc.

 

[lordofthereef]

Nearly 24 hours a not a single person has input? I see people listing their DIY LED rigs on their BC29 all the time. Surely SOMEONE has something to say!

 

[lordofthereef]

PS I am not ungrateful. Just shocked!:fun5:

 

[thedon986]

I have the same setup but with XP-G whites and XR-E blues. I run the blues at 100% and the whites at about 50%. About a 20K look slightly purple, mostly blue. Lights run from 3 PM to 10 PM. I get decent growth on my birdsnest and montis. I'm new to SPS though and added my first blue/green Acro, so I may need to bump up the whites. My polyp extension is great and my Cap is growing like crazy, started at 2" before summer and it's about 5 /12-6" in diameter now.

 

[ocpondpoacher]

I see it has been awhile since anyone has posted but I would like updates?

I basically have the same cree setup with 10 RB and 10 CW over a 25 gal cube and I can not get my light setting right. I am currently running my blues at 20% and my whites at 10% because I bleached out some monti caps and some other SPS. I also had some LPS that would not open and some chalice that lost color. This is crazy to me that I can not seem to turn this light up at all without messing something up. What are the chances that my light is to low and I am ****ing stuff off. I really need a par meter to check it and find out the true numbers.