LED mix for SPS tank

[reefgeezer]

Hi all,

I'm building an LED light for what will be a 75 SPS tank. The guys in the DIY forum have helped me design the thing and I'm ready to order the LED's and drivers. I'm planning on mixing CREE 3W Cool white, neutral white, royal blue, and blue LEDs to try to get a good mix for SPS growth and to make the colors pop. I even thought about adding a few red ones to help the PUR.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to the mix? I plan to run a minimum of 48 LED's. I have planned to add 12 more should I need to tweak the color rendition or increase intensity. They will only be 6" off the surface so I'm going to start without optics.

 

[dvanacker]

well first I think 48 LEDs doesnt seem like enough for a 75g. I would also get optics from the start...they make a pretty big difference. I like the 80degree optics myself because you don't want them to spot light too much.

I find that the cree cool white LEDs I've got from rapidled have been very warm....yellow/white light. I go would go 4 royal blue to 1 cool white...but I like my tank fairly blue.

Thats all I can tell you.

 

[reefgeezer]

well first I think 48 LEDs doesnt seem like enough for a 75g. I would also get optics from the start...they make a pretty big difference. I like the 80degree optics myself because you don't want them to spot light too much.

I find that the cree cool white LEDs I've got from rapidled have been very warm....yellow/white light. I go would go 4 royal blue to 1 cool white...but I like my tank fairly blue.

Thats all I can tell you.

Are you running LED's?

 

[dvanacker]

On my display I have royal blue's but I run MH lights.

I run 3 x T5 (36") and 24 x LED (cree cool white and royal blue) on my 36x18x9 frag tank.

 

[sunny03]

On my display I have royal blue's but I run MH lights.

I run 3 x T5 (36") and 24 x LED (cree cool white and royal blue) on my 36x18x9 frag tank.

Hi

is it possible to show a pic of the lighting that you combine t5 with LED... and how you hook it up to your tank

As i am thinking of using 4*T5 with LED custom them into a hood.

 

[reefgeezer]

I currently run two 150W DE HQI 10K Halide and six 28W T5HO's (Guismann Actinic Plus and Pure Actinic). It's bulb replacement time and I want to upgrade instead. I have some SPS corals now that do well, but they are near the surface. I don't know if they would do as well at the bottom.

The guys on the DIY forum think that 12 White Cree XP-Gs @ 1.3 amps, 6 White XP-G's and 6 Royal Blue XP-E's @ 1 amp, and 24 Royal Blue XP-E's @ 750 ma,should roughly equal the lights I have now. I trust they know what they are talking about. However, I thought I would pose the question of how many LED's to the guys to keep SPS corals. The question I have is would either of these light systems support a dense population of SPS corals?

I'm building the 48 LED system in 4 sets of 12 each ran in series from four dimmable drivers. That gives me the four channels that a Typhon controller can operate. It wouldn't be hard to add more by wiring the two 750 ma sets in parallel to yield up to an additional 24 LED's (72 total). However, I just don't know how many I really need to use.