DIY Full Spectrum Light Fixture Color Combination

[ravi197699]

Hello reefers,

I am building a fixture for friend of mine and we came up with this color combination. We will be running these led's with LDD-1000h and LDD 700H drivers with Coralux board and controller Storm-X. Please provide your feedback and suggestions and let us know if we have correct color combination. T

Thanks,

Rav

 

[Aqualund]

I have found better luck using 410 and 430...and then 660 and 630...these cover both local maxes for chlorophyll.

 

[TropTrea]

I have found better luck using 410 and 430...and then 660 and 630...these cover both local maxes for chlorophyll.

Corals do not need a lot of RED light. In nature they get close to none unless they are very shallow water corals. Excessive red has been proven to bleach some corals as well as boast Algea and bacteria growth especialy Cyno-Bacteria.

I like too use Neutral Whites rather than cool whites as they add a little red makingred LED's sensless. They also allow for more blues snce they are brighter than the Cool Whites.

If your using dimmable drivers I would suggest a ratio of 1 neutral white for 3 Blues. If your using fixed drivers then it is between 1 neutral white to 3.5 or even 4 Blues depending in your color taste.

For the blkues I like to split them up wattage wise with a ration close to
1 near UV 410 to 420nm
2 True Blues 470 nm
4 Royal Blues 455 nm

I'm hopping they will some day come out with a quality 430-440 nm LED.

 

[ravi197699]

Thanks for the input guys so I will be taking out the red ones please find type and color spectrum below for led's that I am planning to use for this project and yes these will be running with LDD-1000h and LDD 700H drivers and controlled with Coralux controller. I like 20k color temp so you think if I go with 3:1 ratio (Blue : Warm White) I can achieve that look ?

Below are the the number of leds, type and the spectrum

50 - Deep Blue XP-E - 465-485nm wavelength
13 - Cool White XP-G - 5k - 8k
13 - Neutral White XP-G 3k - 5k
9 - UV - 410-420nm wavelength
4 - Cyan - Phillips Rebel - 490-520nm
5 - Green - Cree XP-E - 520-535nm

 

[Jerzey]

Cree came out with a new uv star covers 400-420 and is the same size as there single stars I'm ordering soon and gonna try
Total Spectrum Violet UV LED

$20.00

Since Violet/UV LEDs output a color spectrum close to where human eyes cannot pick up the light, these LEDs will appear dimmer than other colors. With this in mind, we're proud to introduce our newest 4-chip Violet UV LED! Get 4 LEDs in one small package (still on 20mm star boards) with better wavelength coverage! We haven't seen any LEDs on the market with better 400-420nm wavelength coverage than these!

Min. luminous flux (radiometric power) 850mW@ 350mA Typical forward voltage 13.5V@ 700mA (basically the equivalent of 4 of our other LEDs, so make sure your driver can handle the voltage your LED string will draw with these) Two chips with 400-410nm wavelength and two chips with 410-420nm wavelength for full coverage! 700mA max. drive current

 

[ravi197699]

So how many of these would I need in 40" fixture?

 

[Jerzey]

One of these stars replaces almost 4 uv stars I would do 4-5 but its kind of up to you really... Just make sure you get the voltage right.... I'm doing 2 on my 20 inch heatsink..... There on rapid led

 

[ravi197699]

I will be using LDD-700H driver and that can run 3 led's If I have done the calculation right lol

 

[Jerzey]

These use 13.5V@ 700MA unlike crees xte xpg 3.5v

 

[ravi197699]

LDD driver should be able to do the job fine... what is your input on this ?

 

[Aqualund]

Excessive red has been proven to bleach some corals as well as boast Algea and bacteria growth especialy Cyno-Bacteria.

This is kind of misleading as the excessive part of the experiments was where there was no other light source, and the irradience was very high with only red light.

small amounts of 600-660nm are actually proven to be beneficial for chlorophyll and some coral's absorption/emission spectra (coloration) fall within these ranges.

Having a few reds in the unit and a separate dimmable channel set at a low level in a tank with proper water parameters will not harm any corals and will enhance coloration. I can say this because I have had them over my tank for quite a while with no issues...only benefits.

All I suggest is at least emulating the light curve for a MH lamp which indeed has quite a variety of light between 550 and 700nm.

If you're not going to do this I would suggest some t5's as supplementation for everything in between then.

 

[ravi197699]

Thanks Aqualund for your input but I am trying to stick to led's only, that's why I wanted to get input on the colors and if you see the picture of the led I have added most of important colors .

 

[Aqualund]

Okay well then I would suggest you provide your corals with a complete spectrum much like what a metal halide offers. You can read about the different spectrums required here:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2006/9/aafeature
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2009/1/aafeature1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorophyll
http://www.systembio.com/downloads/RFP.pdf

Different spectral graphs of MH lamps and the presence of yellow, orange, near red and red spectrum:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2004/2/aafeature2_album/Figure10.jpg

Here's the article about the exposure to red light causing bleaching. It was done at 160 par on pocillipora which I think would be an excessive level to provide. I wouldn't recommend any more than 15-20 par in red or near red light as this best emulates the MH lamp.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/12/aafeature1

Yes there is virtually no red light in nature where these corals are found, but then again no one wants to run blues only, as you cannot see the true beauty of most corals. It's a balance between what is neccessary/not and what is most beneficial I agree.

All I am suggesting is that you expand your spectrum a bit to offer the best coloration of your tank inhabitants that you can.

 

[Jerzey]

This is kind of misleading as the excessive part of the experiments was where there was no other light source, and the irradience was very high with only red light.

small amounts of 600-660nm are actually proven to be beneficial for chlorophyll and some coral's absorption/emission spectra (coloration) fall within these ranges.

Having a few reds in the unit and a separate dimmable channel set at a low level in a tank with proper water parameters will not harm any corals and will enhance coloration. I can say this because I have had them over my tank for quite a while with no issues...only benefits.

All I suggest is at least emulating the light curve for a MH lamp which indeed has quite a variety of light between 550 and 700nm.

If you're not going to do this I would suggest some t5's as supplementation for everything in between then.

i completely agree my fixture has
22 royal blue
14 white (2 cw, 8 nw, 4 ww)
3 blue
6 violet
2 deep red
2 cyan
and i have absolutely no algae growth the problem most people have imo is there not clustering there reds with there other colors and it's causing a spot light effect and or not dimming them down... but it's all speculation with alot in the led world every day you'll read people changing this and that and recently people saying the uv spectrum is not needed.... the jury is still out on alot of things but one thing is you def need to be ready and willing to change and adjust your fixture as leds evolve!

 

[Jerzey]

I will be using LDD-700H driver and that can run 3 led's If I have done the calculation right lol

way good lol!

 

[Jerzey]

Mixing red light and cyan light at the right intensity will make a white light

 

[fng_71]

if you're using ldd drivers check out coralux. they sell a pcb board that is simple to use and cheap. i would have used them on my build but i already bought the wired ldd's instead of the pinned.

 

[ravi197699]

YUP I am getting controller Storm X board and all other parts from them, I want this fixture to be as neat/plug n play as possible. Do you guys know any other supplier for solderless cree led's besides rapid. This is going is only most expensive part of this build and I want to shop smart....

 

[TropTrea]

Mixing red light and cyan light at the right intensity will make a white light

The eye may think it seeing white on a neutral back ground but in reality you have two peaks one at Cyan and another at RED. If you now light up a color chart or color wheel with this light you will se that the colors from yellow green, to yellow oreange will be very dark because there is no light at their wave lenghts to reflect back at you.

This is often seen with some lighting systems when doing photography. The eye is more sensative to low light levels than a camera whe there is strong light at another frequency. So the dominant colors of the light wash out other colors in the picture. In this case the picture would be a mixture of red and cyan like a cartoon with the other areas black.

 

[TropTrea]

This is kind of misleading as the excessive part of the experiments was where there was no other light source, and the irradience was very high with only red light.

small amounts of 600-660nm are actually proven to be beneficial for chlorophyll and some coral's absorption/emission spectra (coloration) fall within these ranges.

Having a few reds in the unit and a separate dimmable channel set at a low level in a tank with proper water parameters will not harm any corals and will enhance coloration. I can say this because I have had them over my tank for quite a while with no issues...only benefits.

All I suggest is at least emulating the light curve for a MH lamp which indeed has quite a variety of light between 550 and 700nm.

If you're not going to do this I would suggest some t5's as supplementation for everything in between then.

I'm not saying you should completly avoid red light completly. I personly use neutral White LED's that produce much more red light than cool whites do. If I were using cool whites instead of neutrals would probably look at how I could add a small amount or reds (running only a few of them or running them at very low currents) But I'm convinced that the neutral whites provide enough red. I also like them as they are vissibly brighter than the cool whites and I can use more blues which are the back bone for coral growth.

If my recolection is correct the "bad" wave lenght 480nm that I have read several sources claiming it should be avoided if possible. Most people use a 620nm red that would create any apreciable 580nm red, but some use a 660nm red and this would have some light in the produced at 680nm.