LED Lighting

S

smokedsalmon

New member
Just getting back into reefing. Used to have a 135, currently have a 12 nano and a week old 37 gallon.

I want good info on LED lights. The idea is that I use LED only. I don't want to replace MH bulbs or spend on electricity but want LPS, Zoo's and some SPS. I figure and have seen videos on Youtube with reefers that went to LED only. WOW ~ I want to be in that club.

I set this tank up about a week ago. I got it on craigslist, it is a 37 gallon tank ~ 12"x30" on the hood. The filtration and the lighting might be more suitable for freash water. I am working on the sump and skimmer.

In an amazingly tragic tragic tank explosion I was given a bunch of really nice years old live rock and sand in a very imptomptu way.

Amazingly the tank perameters are excellent so far. I want the best for this tank before I introduce any inverts of little reef fish.

Any information on how I can get LED lighing suitable for this tank I would love to hear from you.

99725Tank_Full_2.jpg
 
If you are up to building your own go over to nano reef and find threads by evilc66 he even has a guide in the lighting forum. He knows more than pretty much anybody about reef LED.

If you want pre-made, you are in for a search. There was one company making larger fixtures like you need but they were sued out of existence by a company holding a patent on using LEDs on aquariums. The even sadder thing is the company who sued does not even make products for the aquarium industry, but held that patent and saw a way to make free money. I cannot recall either company name right now.

Which ever route you go, expect to pay some cash. Premade fixtures for your size tank were around $700-800. For DIY you would probably need 50-60 (or more) LEDs and the high power, 3W LEDs run around $7 each unless you can find a bulk or group discount somewhere.


Good luck.
 
IMO from what I hear LED's are still unproven. Hudson is correct in the fact that you would need somewheres around 60-70 3W leds to make effective. (expensive in my opinion). If you want something that will give alot of light and do not want to venture with MH then I would go with a T5 retro with individual reflectors. I ventured into T5 about a year ago..Love the color, electricity bill went down.

Just my $.02 though

Chris
 
smokedsalmon,

You didnt mention how many watts of lighting you currently have & what kind.
I could make a SWAG at how many LEDs are required to mimic what you have & from there you could estimate the cost.


I have been experimenting with LEDs.

I built my moon lights from 2X 3W CREE LEDs and I just finished my Sump MACRO grow light using 6 LEDs and I will start using it this weekend.

I will post on the "DIY LEDs - The write-up" thread on the DIY forum when it is done.

I am also building some Display tank lighting for a LFS in the near future.

Stu
 
You can get the Aquaillumination LED lights from reefgeek.com

I have had them on my tank for about a year and a half and really like them.
 
be very carefull if you buy used led systems. the pfo ones had serious quality issues and are out of business now. i would google led reef lighting, there is a ton of info there if you want to make your own or find a place to buy a plug-and-play model.
 
Thanks for the input, been a minute since I have checked in.

Okay, my tank is currently what came on this 37 gallon eclipse hood/canopy, one 420 actinic T8 bulb which is 24 inches and the other bulb is an eclipse natural daylight bulb and it is also 24 inches. Says to replace with any T8 florecent lamp up to 18 watts.

Anyone know if cristrmas LED lights would put off enough light? I am finding them cheap on e-bay and also led plant grow lights - the idea would be to get the cheap LED lights and try a DIY custom job.

The fixtures on reefgeek are cool but can't sell the wife on dropping 2k on lights.
 
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PM me formore info but I have almost everything to build a brand new LED system, LEDs dimable drivers, and heatsinks and fans, all new never used at all, for sale I am haveing to get out of the hobby. There are 60 leds total, 10 drivers. The LEDs are Cree XRE. sll way under what a fixture is and not much to put together.
 
i would follow up on what else has been said,but this is my take on it: the christmas led lights look horrible on a tank(colorwise-iv'e tried already), they are not nearly bright enough to sustain life, & the ones i have seen have a noticeable flash to them (60hz) due to ac power. there are a lot of DIY projects for led systems, but they still seem very expensive for what you get in the end. you need larger, powerfull leds (like luxeon) and finding them cheap can be tough.
you might look into t5's or mh for that tank. 37's are tall and narrow. it is going to be tough for any small light to penetrate the depths of that tank. a dual 150w mh might be a good solution,but it will still cost a few hundred regardless. you could possibly fit 4 t5's across the top, just make sure you get a fixture that has individual reflectors to get maximum efficiency from each bulb. unfortunately the eclipse hood is made for fish only tanks and will not sustain corals. you need an upgrade that the eclipse cannot fulfill. the led plant lights could be promising, but i would wonder about the color rendition on the tank. they may look very green or yellowish. i would have to see how many lumens they put off, but would guess they are not strong enough for a reeftank. LED reef lighting is in a weird place right now.
 
smokedsalmon,

I am guessing that you would want ~16 LEDs white & blue mixed with dimmable drivers.

This will give you about 34 watts when dimmed to 70%.

that would be ~$200 for the LEDs & Drivers.
Another ~$50 misc for parts

Stu
 
that is an awesome link. reading that has changed my mind about LED's for sure. how can you see that and not do it? now i just need to get some extra cash together.
 
Stick with people who have a LED system up and running and have had success with it. Dave (Freddie 40) on the DARC board got LED's for his cube and while it has pretty good PAR and he loves the color he is having some issues with them that sounds like a compatibility issues between the drivers and LED boards or something. He bought his kit off Nanotuners I think.
 
"Would something like this work?"

Would it work for what? We need to know what you intend to grow.
I have cheap 6500K LEDs driving my Macro Fuge, but That might not be what you want for a SPS display.

I have built LED lights for different systems cheaply, what do you want?

Stu
 
I will be switching out my halides for the new Aquaillumination LED modules. I will let you know how I like them
 
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