DIY LED Questions

medic155

New member
Hey all,

I currently have a 55 gallon that I will be upgrading to a 75 gallon in May(if all goes well with the purchasing of a house). With the upgrade, I would like to upgrade my 4x54W T5HO fixture with a DIY LED build. I would like it to be controllable by my Apex Lite. I know that I would like a full spectrum light (UV, Royal Blue, Blue, Cyan, Green, Red, Cool White, Warm White, and Neutral White). But, I don't know what ratio to do these in, how many total LED's I would need, or what drivers, power supplies, etc. that I would need. I am decent with a soldering iron. Any input on would be greatly appreciated!!!
 
I did a StevesLED build in December. I posted about it here.

Read everything and anything you can find.

And I wouldn't use Cool White at all, it's just a big spike in the royal blue range balanced out a little with the rest of the spectrum. Neutral and Warm Whites are same but with a lower blue spike compared to the rest of the spectrum they contain. IMO all they do is wash things out.
 
Make your life easier, go with warm or neutral whites to cover most of that "full spectrum" desire, you'll get the warmer colors, but you can also dial them down with respect to any blue LEDs you put in if you don't like the color. By throwing in green, red and cyan colors you very often will have areas that are too red, and other areas that don't have much.

Look into the XTE neutral or warm white LEDs as well as they are both considerably "warmer" than their XPG counter parts.

There is really is no reason to go with cool, neutral and warm whites all at the same time. White LEDs are basically royal blue LEDs with a phosphor, so you get that "full spectrum" (green to red) hump of various degrees (depending upon how warm the led is) and a spike at the royal blue spectrum. I went with neutral whites and I can't be happier.

As to ratios, it really is up to you of what you feel is good, there is no "magic number" 90% of it is aesthetics, you'll have the necessary spectrum to grow stuff, it's just a matter of what do you want it to look like. My current fixture is a 1:2:1 (white:blue:UV) ratio but I have 4 controllable channels, so if I don't like it I can goose it one way or another, although currently I like the make up just fine.

Numbers, depends upon what you want to keep, how deep is the tank, how wide, what sort of optics do you plan on putting on there.. You really need to come to the table with more of these answered, otherwise I would say buy a Maxspect Razor (160W) and be done with it.
 
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