First time LED Build - Color ratio help please?

[BugiSti]

Greetings RC,

Finally decided to build an LED setup. This will eventually become 2 pendants and at the moment will be hung above an 80g rimless (48x24x16).

Attached is a picture of my heatsink (rapidled enclosure - 6'' x 20'').

I would like some input in regards to led/color selection for optimal esthetics as well as coral growth (sps,lps, and some softies). I will also be keeping clams.

This will be controlled by a storm x or bluefish controller and ran off of an LDD driver setup.

Thanks for the help.

 

[bblumberg]

Greetings RC,

Finally decided to build an LED setup. This will eventually become 2 pendants and at the moment will be hung above an 80g rimless (48x24x16).

Attached is a picture of my heatsink (rapidled enclosure - 6'' x 20'').

I would like some input in regards to led/color selection for optimal esthetics as well as coral growth (sps,lps, and some softies). I will also be keeping clams.

This will be controlled by a storm x or bluefish controller and ran off of an LDD driver setup.

Thanks for the help.

For what it's worth, here is what I did for my 75g corner (30" deep). The lights have 90 degree optics and are wired into 4 channels (the numbers in the diagram refer to channels), on the same heat sink you have and controlled by a Storm controller, all from RapidLED. This has been running for more than a year and I can grow LPS and SPS well (although the tank has a Bryopsis problem at the moment). Haven't tried clams in this tank.

When I have time, I am going to replace some of the CW with neutral white and the green&photo reds with XP-E blue (465-485 nm). If I had it to do over again, I'd forego the solderless installation and simply solder the LEDs together. It was a bit pain to deal with the wires and channels. I'd also use a different controller as I don't like that the Storm doesn't have more than one ramp program (i.e., it can ramp the initial channels, but not any others later).

Despite my happiness with this light, I should note that in my new 150g build, I decided to use 3 x multi-chip LEDs (5 channels 50 dream chip) from AC-RC hobby down the center of the tank and 4 x 80w T5s flanking that (2 Giesmann Razor retrofits). I was astonished how much more diffused and bright the T5 light is. They are definitely a good choice to supplement the LEDs.

 

[BugiSti]

Bruce, thank you so much for the input. Are you having any issues with heat from having so many leds on the heatsink?

 

[bblumberg]

Bruce, thank you so much for the input. Are you having any issues with heat from having so many leds on the heatsink?

Not at all. The housing is usually cool to the touch, at worst slightly warm. Same with the power supply and driver box (which sit on top of the hood). The fixture is in a 12" tall hood that originally housed a 250 W MH bulb - the hood has two 120mm cooling fans, one that points in and the other out. Perhaps I should also mention that I run the violet channel 1 ( at 110/255), the blues 2 and 3 at 125/255 and the white channel 4 at 80/255. Every time I bump the blue/violet up, I see necrosis of the SPS and since I have a bubble algae, bryopsis issue in this tank, I have been keeping the whites down.

I learned the hard way that bugs are not the only bad things that come in on fragments bought at shows. A Bayer dip takes care of those, but not nuisance algae. New purchases now get peroxide baths as well.

 

[BugiSti]

Oh man. That's no good. Worst I have had was flat worms. Those guys took over pretty quickly.

How do you feel about the deep red? that is a topic that I have seen mixed feelings about..

 

[bblumberg]

Oh man. That's no good. Worst I have had was flat worms. Those guys took over pretty quickly.

How do you feel about the deep red? that is a topic that I have seen mixed feelings about..

Luckily, the bryopsis is only in this tank. My Mg is at 2500 and Li is estimated to be the same based on how much LiCl I dosed. Bryopsis is growing very well no matter what I do (parameters are good, PO4 <0.08, NO3 ~5.0). I took the rock that it covers out and treated it with peroxide which worked beautifully, but the stuff came back after a month or so. Big PITA. Bubble algae are also in this tank but emerald crabs keep it from getting out of control.

I have mixed feelings about the deep red. I originally put them in, as well as the green because I wanted to be sure to cover those parts of the photosynthetic spectrum. However, you can also cover those wavelengths with neural or warm white so I may replace a couple of the CWs with NW and the remainder with blues. In any event, if you go with solderless, or are handy with de-soldering, it is no biggie to change the LEDs out later if you are not happy with them. I will find time to do this after my 150G build is completed.

Good luck.

 

[BugiSti]

Currently I have 14-cw, 2-grn,10-ww,24-rb, 7-410-420uv, 5-400-410

I had thought about ordering red and accidentally ordered plain red (620-630nm). So I'm not going to use those.

 

[bblumberg]

Currently I have 14-cw, 2-grn,10-ww,24-rb, 7-410-420uv, 5-400-410

I had thought about ordering red and accidentally ordered plain red (620-630nm). So I'm not going to use those.

This should work well. Are you going to put optics on these? For a 16" deep tank with your fixture suspended above it, you might consider adding them to avoid too much spread. Have a look here: https://store.marinebeam.com/beam-angle-calculator-1/.

I also think that you are going to find that the whites are very bright and that you will not run them as high as the blue/violet. In my nanocube with 12 RB and 12 white, I run the white channel at about half the power as the blue. If you find the same, you might consider replacing some of the CW with RB in the future.

 

[BugiSti]

This should work well. Are you going to put optics on these? For a 16" deep tank with your fixture suspended above it, you might consider adding them to avoid too much spread. Have a look here: https://store.marinebeam.com/beam-angle-calculator-1/.

I also think that you are going to find that the whites are very bright and that you will not run them as high as the blue/violet. In my nanocube with 12 RB and 12 white, I run the white channel at about half the power as the blue. If you find the same, you might consider replacing some of the CW with RB in the future.

is it pretty easy to remove the thermal compound?

 

[theatrus]

is it pretty easy to remove the thermal compound?

Thermal compound cleans with alcohol easily. Thermal adhesive, not so much.

 

[BugiSti]

Awesome! I was kind of worried about that. I have no issues soldering but I was unsure as to how easy the compound was to remove.

 

[spjames]

For thermal adhesive just get a small screwdriver under the star and carefully lever it off.

FYI I just fired up my latest led build using the Jedi/Evil cluster...

Vero 10 NW (97 CRI)
4 x HyperViolet
2 x Luxeon M Royal Blue (need to switch to 3 x 3-up Luxeon ES RB as M discontinued)
1 x Luxeon ES Cool Blue 3-up
1 x 3-up = 2 of ES Limes ; 1 of ES Cyan

5 channels on a 5-up LDD-700H board and the other channel (RB) on ELN 60-48 (current dropped to around 1A). All pwm controlled by my Reef Angel. I have two clusters operational over my 90gall DT currently and I'm planning on adding two further clusters down the road. I use 2 x 12v pwm fans on the heatsinks for cooling, also controlled by the Reef Angel.

Nearly forgot, I do have 8 deep reds on a different heatsink too, but they are only for my algae turf scrubber in the sump on a reverse lighting schedule, ie. 23:00 to 07:00.

 

[bblumberg]

Awesome! I was kind of worried about that. I have no issues soldering but I was unsure as to how easy the compound was to remove.

Did you glue your stars onto that heat sink? It is designed for screwing them on which makes it very easy to change them later....

 

[BugiSti]

Did you glue your stars onto that heat sink? It is designed for screwing them on which makes it very easy to change them later....

No, not yet. From my understanding the thermal paste is used to transfer the heat from the led. I'm not sure that bolting them down is enough to transfer the heat.

 

[djbon]

It is always a good idea to thermal paste the star to main heatsink. Better heat transfer means LED will run cooler. Since my DIY led are using generic bulb, i use thermal glue to mount them directly to the heatsink. As for color ratio, I choose 5:1:1 ratio of RB:10K white:6500K white, with deep red, purple UV and cyan for color rendering. Not bad as far as my eyes can tell.

 

[bblumberg]

No, not yet. From my understanding the thermal paste is used to transfer the heat from the led. I'm not sure that bolting them down is enough to transfer the heat.

You put a dab of thermal compound on the bottom of the star, then locate it where you want and screw it onto the heat sink. Nuts slide into the slots so that they don't turn when the screws go in. No need to glue the stars on this type of heat sink.

 

[BugiSti]

Thanks for all of the help guys!!!


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