LED Recommendation Thread

So I bought all my LED's a while back and had been lazy to put them together, but a few weeks ago i drilled all my heatsinks, and finally put on all the LED's. I have 3 total heatsinks with 40leds on each one, but my question is for my eventual system(210 standard 72X24X27ish) what optics should i run? I have all 60s right now but i feel like that might be too narrow?

I hung them over the tank empty and i feel liek there is just a spotlight right in the middle of each opening lol about 24X24 opening each. Would i be better off removing optics for the LED's in the middle and leaving the 60* optics on the 2 outer rows? or switch over to all 80* optics?

5 rows of 8 LED's :) on a 16X7

total of 120 LED's I thought that the 16X7 Heatsink would be enough to get coverage for my 24X24 openings but looking at it now i fear that maybe I got the wrong optics. Or maybe i just didnt raise the lights high enough, currently at about 11.5" from the water surface. In my Frag tank at about 18" i bleached almost all my SPS, so i switched back to the 250W MH.

Thank you for your time.
 
60s at 11.5 is a little tight. I prefer raising them with optics, because I think this gets more of the light in the tank and worst case they need to be turned down.

7 inches to cover 24 sounds iffy. If you remove the optics how does it look.
 
Hey Fishman, I appreciate the reply! I honestly have not removed the optics yet, but i did remove some at the end. Later i realized that i shoudl have removed more fromt he middle instead. So I have actually been thinking of putting my canopy up on the ceiling. The canopy is 11" high and i have yet to trim it so options are still open since I am no where near done with setting up the tank. I guess that explains why my SPS were not so happy when i had the fixture over the frag tank lol. So maybe i will rig something to try and raise the light temporary to see if it gives me mroe coverage. How high do you think i would have to raise it to get a little more coverage with the 60s?

Thanks again.
 
I think i will have just about that 24" above the tank.... I will try and make a rig with some 2x4s and see how much coverage there is at the bottom of the tank at that point...

Maybe i can also use my wall in the basement and just back the light up until I see a 24X24 ish circle? might be easier than me trying to make a crazy rig lol, I want to setup the 210 already aghhh lol
 
If je moves the LEDs up that high, will it affect the PAR quite a bit? I was planning on doing a deeper tank like that but I still wanted to be able to grow SPS on the bottom of the tank.

I know the higher you get the less PAR you have. Is it worth keeping the LEDs closer to the water without optics? Or is it better to have them on and have them higher?

Sorry if I hijacked your question.
 
IMHO you get more light in the tank with optics, but you also get less side light so corals may grow differently then you are used to.

Here is my reasoning. LEDs by themselves have a spread of 130. Or about 65 degree on one side. So an LED 5 inches up spread the light over about 8.6 inches. That is almost an 18 inch tank as you go down a lot of the light hits the glass and may or may not be reflected. Now with a lens you can plan (sort of) to have the 18 spread at any point in the tank. You may get dark top corners or lower par at the bottom, but I believe more of the light makes it into the tank.
 
Thanks for the info Fish, I didnt have time to test the distance with the lighting yesterday since my buddies brakelines cracked in the middle of the highway last night. Emergency brakeline repair lol....

I find it interesting how you explained the cone and growth pattern of corals..... Its like i knew that the light spread is like a cone but never really thought about what would happen when the corals gets close to the beginning of the cone(less light) lol. Now I see why all the pictures i see of the cone/tank diagrams always have the base of the cone around the center of the tank. Thanks for the info again.
 
I have a Mr. Aqua 17 gal rimless. it's dimensions are 24 x 12 x 14. I am trying to figure out if a 1 ecoxotic par 38 is good enough or do I need 2? If i get 2 then i am leaning towards the kessil 150w fixture. what does everyone think and i thank you for your replies
 
Those that added red LEDs, how are things looking? How many reds did you add? I was thinking, if you put each color on it's own driver, you could dim the amount of red, just like you would for the RB or CW. Same goes for green. I am not a herp fan, but I know reptile people have to use UVA and UVB bulbs to mimic the sun to help reptiles get the VitD they need to absorb Ca. I wonder if adding a UVA flood lamp would help in any way.
 
I have been looking around the Cree site, and it is not so user friendly on an iPhone. I am looking for something that tells me the age of the LEDs, which are older(assuming less efficient and larger LEDs), and which are newer. Where do the XP-Es fit into the mix?
 
Will,
I would suggest 48-72 LEDs. About 1/3 Neutral and 2/3 blue/. With the blue do about 1"5 standard blue to royal blue. That is what I would try if I did a new build.

But lots of questions. What do you want to keep? How high above the tank? What color do you like? To think of a few.
 
Im planning to make a DIY fixture soon for a 75 gallon. Not much in there now but Im planning to have anemone and some corals down the road. I was thinking of making the fixtures with 24 LEDS per side. I was thinking of 12 RB, 6 CW, and 6 NW, all with 80 degree lenses possibly without lenses since it will be real close to the water but i heard you get better PAR with lenses. Also throwing in maybe 2 or 3 LEDS per side for moon lights. Is this combination good? Would it be worth it to throw in a few green and red LEDS? Thoughts on this?
 
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I would recommend 4 Blue 12 RB and 8 NW. Try and raise it a foot and use 80 degree lenses. 2 to 3 CREE will be too much for moon light IMHO.
 
TheFishMan65 said:
I would recommend 4 Blue 12 RB and 8 NW. Try and raise it a foot and use 80 degree lenses. 2 to 3 CREE will be too much for moon light IMHO.
Click to expand...

So you think I shouldn't even bother with CW, Red, or Green LEDS? This combo won't make the tank look to blue? For the Moonlight's I was thinking of the Royal Blue Moonlights from Rapid, I believe they are 1 watt thats why I was thinking 2 per side. Thanks!
 
I would not worry about CW, Red, or Green. My experience is CW and RB, and NW and RB. I liked the NW and RB (I built for someone) better. I am reading a little regular blue is good.

Those sound like good moon lights.
 
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