Need Help Choosing New Lights

[greenstarfish00]

I have had reef tanks for more then 15 years so I ahve a fair amount of experience. I mainly ran T-5 for a long time and probably 5 years ago or so I switched to a radid LED DIY LED fixture that has servmed me well over my 30x30x30 inch cube. I generaly keep softies, LPS's and a few SPS, but not many. I'm switching tanks b/c its a terribel pain for me to get down into a 30 inch deep tank for cleaning etc. New tank is going to be 48X24X20 (tall) and I need new lighting and things ahve changed since I last looked for lights 5-6 years ago. I want to stick w/ LED's now that I ahve them I like them and I enjoy not having to swap out all of those t-5 bulbs every 9 months or so. I'm probably not going to keep an acro tank or anything like that, but I do wanta little flexability. I need a fixture that looks nice. The tank is in our kitchen and my wife has been beating me up b/c the DIY unit I have now has wires hanging from it and she just thinks its ugly. So I need soemthing asteticaly pleaseing, but I can stomach droping $800 on a radon and then having to buy at least two of them. That is ludicroous to me. What is the bets way to get a good looking fixture that will meet my needs for a 20 inch deep tank but isn't stupid expensive.

Sorry Im sure there are 20 threads on this but I have't found anything that wasn't old or totaly off topic.

 

[greenstarfish00]

One thing I should note is I'm running a ~ 110g cube that is 30x30x30 w/ a 100g sump in my basement and I have a full reefkeeper w/ advance light controler. As long as I can connect my led to my reefkeepr I don't really need any other fancy controlers w/ the light itself if that saves $$$.

 

[mcgyvr]

Why not stay with the Rapid fixture you already have?
It will work just fine on a 48x24 tank if it did on a 30x30.


Oh and there are easily 2,000+ threads on this not just 20 Probably just 20 from the last few weeks..

 

[greenstarfish00]

light

light

HA! Yea I figured there were allot of threads. Most of them are difficult to wade through all of the crap though I noticied.

My exsisting light is on a 24 inch heat sink, has a shade under 50 LED's and it works, but

1. It looks like hell and the wife hates it w/ a pasion. She can see the wires inside and then the wire strand down the back that goes to the three meanwell drivers, and so on. She really wnats me to switch something that looks cleaner.

2. Since its a 24 inch fixture it seems like it would ahve a hard time length wise on a 48 inch tank. It seems like I would get dark areas on both ends??? but I guess Im not sure.

Its at the point where deciding what Im going to do w/ lights going forward is holding up buying the new tank.

 

[Mrramsey]

For what it's worth I have a reef breeder photon 48, gen 1 I suppose. Almost 4 years and zero issues. The build quality was really nice. I can't speak for the new version. I was on a budget back then and I am sure there are much nicer lights as well but I too can't stomach the price.

 

[greenstarfish00]

Thanks for the info Mrramsey. I just looked at one of those actualy. The new 48 still runs $589 which is steep but I guess at least one would cover the whole tank. What are you growing under your gen 1 light? Corals all responded well I take it? I can tell you all of my corals strgled when I first switched from t-5's but after a while they got used to the new light and they ahve been good ever since.

 

[jayball]

Just offering an option on reuse of your existing, you could cut it in half and rearrange the diodes. Use some 80/20 as a frame and add wood trim to clean it up, maybe throw a pair of t-5's in as well. I have seen them mounted to the wall with a flat screen TV mount arm.

Otherwise if you want LED's on that budget for that size tank you will probably go black box. 3 arranged front to back will give you great coverage, 2 with the normal side to side orientation will work. SBreeflights offers a 2 year warranty and higher than average quality for a bit more cost than the rest. I hate to see someone with a DIY build abandon it

 

[Mrramsey]

Thanks for the info Mrramsey. I just looked at one of those actualy. The new 48 still runs $589 which is steep but I guess at least one would cover the whole tank. What are you growing under your gen 1 light? Corals all responded well I take it? I can tell you all of my corals strgled when I first switched from t-5's but after a while they got used to the new light and they ahve been good ever since.

Mostly soft corals anemones I max it at like 40% on a 10 hour schedule. I've been really happy with it.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[greenstarfish00]

Just offering an option on reuse of your existing, you could cut it in half and rearrange the diodes. Use some 80/20 as a frame and add wood trim to clean it up, maybe throw a pair of t-5's in as well. I have seen them mounted to the wall with a flat screen TV mount arm.

Otherwise if you want LED's on that budget for that size tank you will probably go black box. 3 arranged front to back will give you great coverage, 2 with the normal side to side orientation will work. SBreeflights offers a 2 year warranty and higher than average quality for a bit more cost than the rest. I hate to see someone with a DIY build abandon it

@jayball - Thanks for the input. I'm not opposed to reusing or expanding my DIY build I would just need to prove to my wife that I can make it look slick. The new tank is a rimless glass tank so I would need to show her some examples. Im pretty handy if I have a plan or a sample to go off of. Like I said I Lready have about 50 CREE LED's mixture of white, blue, and deep blue, one green and a handfull of UV. Curently I have a heat sink and the LED's basicaly attached to the bottom of the heat sync with an adhesive. The heat sink is bulky and you can see the wires and LED's from the bottom since I have mine hung about 18 inches above the tank to get good coverage. I'm able to jeep LPS at the very bottom on the outside w/ this just fine. Do you happen to have any sample images of what your talking about? or good links? I'm also not sure how I would get my exsisting LED's off my heat sink? Then I would need a way to hide the wires on the bottom and the wires that head out to the meanwell drivers. I'm open to ideas. Thanks again.

 

[greenstarfish00]

Mostly soft corals anemones I max it at like 40% on a 10 hour schedule. I've been really happy with it.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

@Mrramsey thanks for the pic. Nice tank. I have my light hung w/o a canopy above my rimless tank so astetics of the light itself it important to my wife. I guess I could also break down and build a canopy too

I like the BTA's in there. I should add some of them when I get this switched over.

 

[greenstarfish00]

Just offering an option on reuse of your existing, you could cut it in half and rearrange the diodes. Use some 80/20 as a frame and add wood trim to clean it up, maybe throw a pair of t-5's in as well. I have seen them mounted to the wall with a flat screen TV mount arm.

Otherwise if you want LED's on that budget for that size tank you will probably go black box. 3 arranged front to back will give you great coverage, 2 with the normal side to side orientation will work. SBreeflights offers a 2 year warranty and higher than average quality for a bit more cost than the rest. I hate to see someone with a DIY build abandon it

@jayball - Thanks for the input. I'm not opposed to reusing or expanding my DIY build I would just need to prove to my wife that I can make it look slick. The new tank is a rimless glass tank so I would need to show her some examples. Im pretty handy if I have a plan or a sample to go off of. Like I said I Lready have about 50 CREE LED's mixture of white, blue, and deep blue, one green and a handfull of UV. Curently I have a heat sink and the LED's basicaly attached to the bottom of the heat sync with an adhesive. The heat sink is bulky and you can see the wires and LED's from the bottom since I have mine hung about 18 inches above the tank to get good coverage. I'm able to jeep LPS at the very bottom on the outside w/ this just fine. Do you happen to have any sample images of what your talking about? or good links? I'm also not sure how I would get my exsisting LED's off my heat sink? Then I would need a way to hide the wires on the bottom and the wires that head out to the meanwell drivers. I'm open to ideas. Thanks again.

 

[greenstarfish00]

The other thing I would need if I keep the DIY is a way to clean up the bottom of the fixture. Currently I have like 50 LED's w/ little seperate lens and they fall of overtime and the ones that don't or after I reattach them they still look bad visualy and you can see all of the wires running between diodes. Does anyone make an enclouse that provides better lens and a good looking lower cover? It looks like raid led now provides an entire fixture w/ a good looking cover but it doesn't look like I can buy that seperately to add to mine.