DIY LEDs - The write-up
- Thread starter JohnL
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CJerome21
New member
Yes, direct from ETG, when you order just need to specify you want them star mounted and they will mount them before sending you to. That price is for mounted.
As I posted a little above I noticed another group buy on nano reef for LEDs from ETG, might be able to save some money.
Jerome
kcress
New member
Unlike HID lighting you can use optics to drive the light farther down in a tank. I would expect a LED system to be able to project higher PAR levels deeper than any MH or fluorescent lighting. You would need to run more emitters as the optics are going to reduce the illuminated area provided by each LED.
Another benefit is that you can put the light where you need it. An example would be a "Wall" type display. To get high par at the bottom with a HID system you might need blazing high wattage lamp(s). This could over-flux the top half of the wall. With LEDs and optics you can set things up to light the top half of the wall appropriately then add more LEDs in the correct locations, with optics, to add more light only to the bottom. Essentially you can grade the PAR anyway you want with LEDs.
der_wille_zur_macht
Team RC
I'm waiting for someone to implement something like this. IMHO a big advantage of LED that no one seems to be working on is that you can practically control PAR to the square inch inside your tank!
Tanks with 100% uniformity of lighting from end to end may be the norm, but IMHO they are a little boring and inefficient to boot.
Given an aquascape and coral placement design ahead of time, this could mean huge efficiency gains. Imagine if each coral in a tank had exctly the PAR it needed, while all the "open" space had just enough to look good, or none at all (I'm also waiting for someone to do a big tank with lots of shadow and dramatic contrast in terms of lighting!)
So if one could replace 800w of MH with 400w of LED to create traditional uniform coverage, maybe you could meet your coral's needs with only 200w of LED.
kcress
New member
I couldn't agree more der_wille_zur_macht. There seems to be a lot of concern about "spot lighting". To each his own, but I personally think its much more realistic and captivating. It's why museums use spot lighting and stage productions too. If you dive or snorkel you will see lots of shadows and bright spots where overhead coral has holes and gaps and bright light spears down in unique locations.
Granted, just a uniform grid pattern of spot lighted circles on one's tank bottom would be um, ah, not good, but if done well, I think it could be very enchanting and low wattage too!
Granted, just a uniform grid pattern of spot lighted circles on one's tank bottom would be um, ah, not good, but if done well, I think it could be very enchanting and low wattage too!
der_wille_zur_macht
Team RC
Exactly! It's one of the many things that, IMHO, makes our tanks appear extremely unrealistic/unnatural - we totally ignore the opportunity for dramatic lighting. I've thought this for a long time and have spent many hours trying to dream up ways to achieve interesting lighting with conventional technologies (fluorescent or MH), when along comes this concept of using LEDs on reef tanks, which is by far the best way to achieve this goal!
timmmysli, awesome look. Maybe it's not totally on topic in this thread, but I'd be interested to learn more about your tank; do you have a build thread or other pictures posted anywhere?
Sorry for hijacking
Der_wille_zur_macht heres my TJ http://www.masa.asn.au/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=201184&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
Der_wille_zur_macht heres my TJ http://www.masa.asn.au/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=201184&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
fernandokng
New member
So i decided to turn everything down - I noticed that some of my corals higher up were lighting up... and I wasn't sure whether they were gaining their natural colors or something, since they've always been brown. But then I looked closely, I think they' are actually bleaching from the power of the leds.
I was running the blues and whites at full 700ma with 40 degree optics ( i only gave the corals a week to adjust at 50% before I pumped it up to 100%).
I'm going to run the leds at real low for 2 - 3 weeks, and then ramp them back up at week 4.
I was running the blues and whites at full 700ma with 40 degree optics ( i only gave the corals a week to adjust at 50% before I pumped it up to 100%).
I'm going to run the leds at real low for 2 - 3 weeks, and then ramp them back up at week 4.
fernandokng
New member
Nope, height adjustment is limited, but I have the handy potentiometers to help me do the adjusting 
der_wille_zur_macht
Team RC
This seems to be a very common theme in this thread, and is leading me to believe that many of the systems people are implementing are overdesigned.
Thoughs from the peanut gallery? Is anyone actually running a high number of LEDs (for a given tank size) at full blast?
dogstar74
Premium Member
I have 6 leds 3 white and 3 Royal blues over a 10 gallon tank. I had to cover two of the whites to keep my mushrooms from running and hiding. The rhodactis shrooms really bleached out. But the good news is that they are comming back as orange as they ever should have been. I just recently uncovered the 2nd white LED to see if they can tollerate it yet, but I do know that next time I build a system, I'm using the dimmable with the pot.
Aaron
Aaron
fernandokng
New member
My sps are at the top of the tank. Maybe I can do without the optics? That's even better because I can get better spread, but this is hard to gauge since I don't have any par meter.
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