Novices need LED lighting questions answered.

I'm going back and forth between the ATI Sunpower 60" 8x80w fixture and three Kessil 360's for my 180. They are both about the same price once I add in bulbs.
I like the idea of the 'plug & play' of the Sunpower but do not like the sheer size of the fixture and wonder what changing a 5' bulb (which is bigger than I am) is going to be like. I do like the look of the Kessils and the 'shimmer' but am concerned it won't be enough. I don't want complicated which is why I'm looking at the Kessil.
I know that I do not like the blue, blue tank look, I prefer something with a blue tint and brighter. My tank also has two braces so would like to eliminate as much shadow as possible.
I'll be starting with the usual beginner corals and working my way up. I just cannot decide. Would anyone care to weigh in?
 
Good thread to start as there is a learning curve with led's that alot of people dont know about. They are not just a plug and play setup like t5's, pc's, and mh's were.
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I have a VIPARSPECTRA Timer Control 165W LED which has lots of power. it is about 1 foot above my 29 gallon tank. It seems like you are suggesting ramping up to 50%, but it seems to be plenty bright at 10% white and 10% blue. Could this be enough?
 
ejawitz said:
I have a VIPARSPECTRA Timer Control 165W LED which has lots of power. it is about 1 foot above my 29 gallon tank. It seems like you are suggesting ramping up to 50%, but it seems to be plenty bright at 10% white and 10% blue. Could this be enough?
Click to expand...

If your 29g tank is the standard 18" deep, it's very unlikely that 10% on both channels will grow much but soft corals, and even that is doubtful. You can't trust your eyes, they are terrible at judging light intensity for a number of reasons.

Your 165 watt fixture is pretty common and lots of people run them. I have one over my 10" deep frag tank and I run it at 90% blue and 10% white. BTW, judging blue light intensity with your eyes is worthless. High PAR blue just doesn't look bright to human eyes. Our eyes are geared to see and judge green much better.
 
I'm trying to visualize what the LED set-ups look like, as they aren't sold locally, they look like spot-lights if I look at the Kessil or the Radion LED lamps....

Is it fair to assume that each one of those will cover a certain radius, so say my tank was 60 inches long, I would need at least 2 radions to cover?
 
I didn't read all 5 pages of this, so forgive me if this has already been posted. But I have a plan in place for a DIY that I think sounds amazing.

MakersLED makes an extruded heat sink, that has T-Slots for "Nut and Bolt" Mounting of virtually all standard sized LED's including 3W stars and larger chips. It comes with endcaps and an acrylic splashgaurd, both installed in other slots in the frame. It looks very professional; something trickier to acquire from a DIY project. It has nice sized fins capable of dissapating enough heat for most LEDs. And if you manage to overload its heat capacity, it has slots for cooling fans. it has slots for drivers (which they sell very nice ones as well.) it has slots for a controller (they also sell). But obviously with the DIY you may want to choose your own drivers and controller.

They cut them to size so it will fit over any sized tank.

I am getting a 36" to cover the width of my tank for $149.
It comes with all the nuts and bolts, endcaps and acrylic splashgaurd.

Then I'm getting a driver that can drive 70 3W leds, for $60, and a controller for $50.

So $260, then I still need LEDs, Wire, Solder, and heatsink paste. I already have wire Solder and heatsink paste. If you don't you can get all that for under $20.

What I think is the greatest thing about them is, that after that initial purchase of $149, they are basically infinitely customizable and upgradable.

I can get all the lights I think I will need for under $60 (All 3W, 20 Blue, 10 purple, 20 white, 5 green, 5 red, 5 pink.)

And if I realize I need more, or less, or the ones I get suck, I can just add more, or replace them. After the initial purchase of the housing, to changes things later or upgrade all I have to do is spend $10 more dollars on another pack of LEDs.

I can do two of those for the price of a radion pro, and I have a hard time believing I wont match its par with just one. I'm going to have 65 LEDs dimmable and possibly driven at full wattage (if needed) for less than $350

I think thats a good deal.

Here is a link to their site.

http://www.makersled.com/
 
They also have a slim version which doesn't house the drivers, controller, or cooling fans. But is significantly cheaper. I've thought about getting this, but I want the capability to upgrade to more and more, so I'm going with the full sized.
 
This is also a very good option for someone who had the same situation I am in.
I don't have any money saved up, and I find it hard to save enough for a big purchase.

This lends itself to that because you can buy it step by step.

I started out with a single t5 that came with the tank.
My neighbor gave me some free corals (great guy) even though I wasn't ready for them. When i realized that I didn't have near the light needs met, I scrambled for ligght. I didn't have the money for anything pre-built, so I bought a few LEDs on amazon, and a couple drivers and some small heat sink.for less than $40. I wired them up and mounted them to a piece of wood which sets on my glass lids. It looks like a mess right now. But now I have enough light to at least keep these guys alive. Next I'm going to buy the MakersLED. and piece by piece, paycheck to paycheck, I will buy the rest of the components. Until one day, I'm acclimating animals instead of desperately trying to keep them alive.
 
ejawitz said:
Ok, I will ramp it up. Since I am at 10% now, can I go to 20% today?
Click to expand...

Yes, I'd recommend raising the blue by 10 and the white by 5 every 7 to 10 days. The corals want more blue for photosynthesis. At 50 blue and 25 white slow down the increases (increase the power less and take longer between increases.

gusmanda said:
I'm trying to visualize what the LED set-ups look like, as they aren't sold locally, they look like spot-lights if I look at the Kessil or the Radion LED lamps....

Is it fair to assume that each one of those will cover a certain radius, so say my tank was 60 inches long, I would need at least 2 radions to cover?
Click to expand...

Each fixture has a fixed area it can cover. How deep the tank is and how high the light is off the water affect how big that 'footprint' is. Most 'ordinary' size fixtures like a Radion will cover roughly 1.5' to 2' wide and 2' to 2.5' long. If you have soft corals 2 may be enough, lps may need more than 2 in order to do well and sps will need 3 to do well.
 
Ron,

Is it worth taking water light transmission into consideration? I'm not sure how much it varies. I would assume it does greatly. I know before I got everything squared away, I had problems keeping the clarity of my water perfect. Looking on from the front pane, it didn't seem cloudy, but if viewed from the side, I couldn't see through the length of the tank.

I would assume this would have a considerable effect on the lights ability to perform, therefore making water clarity an important factor on the efficiency of your lighting.

Also, if you're using Acrylic or glass to protect your lights from splashes, there is an LT value associated with each material. I work for an acrylic manufacturer, and our average LT for High-quality clear acrylic is about 93% This seems insignificant, but if you think about it, that is 7% of your light that doesn't even make it to the surface of the water.

Any material is going to have this effect, because if it has 100% LT it would be invisible.

Also if you keep the lights too close to the water, they tend to have salt buildup on the surface of the splash guards, and that will decrease the light transmission as well. I wondered how much effect this had, and so I took a piece into work, and after a week the LT had dropped from 93% to 88%. With a significant spike in Haze (Light scattering) as well, which will re-direct light in seemingly random ways. Personally, I'm going to use the thinnest possible splash guard, with a high LT, and I will be cleaning it regularly.
 
Yes, light transmission is an issue. In general I assume most reefers work to keep their water about as clear as possible and the salt creep/evap cleaned off the light fixture. That's part of the reason nobody can give anybody a perfect answer about how to set their led intensity. Fixtures are different, water clarity is different, height off the water is different, depth in the tank is different...

But look at it this way, if you run MH or t5 florescent you don't have much, if any, control over intensity other than placing screens and such in the way.
 
I know this is an old post and perhaps someone asked this but...

what do you do if you introduce a new coral?


Ron Reefman said:
7. Advice for running LED in your tank: percentage of power, etc. Acclimation to light. Special care when lights come on after a long period of darkness, say, a power outage lasting more than a day.
If your system is new and you are using leds from the start, run them at half power and ramp them up over time. I recommend that most 2 channel fixtures run at 50% blue and 50% white to start. Then if you up the blue to get a cooler white look, dial the white down a bit as well, say 60% blue and 40% white. Over time you can increase the total percentage of power. I run mine with a 5 hour sunrise (all blue the first couple of hours at dawn. Then a 4 hour midday of 100% blue and 50% white (I've taken 3 years to get them that high). Then a 6 hour sunset (the last 3 hours are all blue). I figure I get 4 hours of good PAR during midday and an additional 1 or 2 hours before and after midday. So that's 6 to 8 hours of enough PAR for the zooxanthellae to do photosynthesis. BTW, most zooxanthellae will only do photosynthesis for 6 to 8 hours and then shut down any way.
I have no concerns about going back to my normal power levels after a 2 or 3 day power outage or enforced darkness to eliminate algae or bacteria blooms. The pigment protections that corals develop to block light they don't want doesn't fade away that fast. Just like a human with a good tan, it doesn't fade away in just a day or even three.
Click to expand...
 
gaspipe1 said:
I know this is an old post and perhaps someone asked this but...

what do you do if you introduce a new coral?
Click to expand...

If you have leds and have them turned up high for sps corals, I'd suggest you either put new corals as deep in the water as you can and then move them up to their final home in a couple of steps so they get use to the light. The alternative is to find or create a shadow area like a rock overhang or something to block some of the light and move the coral into the light gradually.

But if your lights aren't turned up as bright as the corals can tolerate, then acclimating is much less of an issue. The basic acclimate it deep in the tank and move it up over time, say 1 to 3 moves over 1 to 3 weeks. This works for MH and t5 lighting as well, but more often than not, they aren't at the upper limit of the coral's ability to tolerate. Leds can get too bright if you aren't careful.
 
Getting ready to introduce some soft corals and LPS to my 50 gallon tank and want to upgrade my lighting prior. Very narrow tank as you can see. Only 12 inches wide. Was considering 2 AI Prime's since it is soo narrow but am also considering 2 of the EchoTech Radion XR15w G4 Pros or 2 of the Nano Box Reef Duo Plus Ms. I really like supporting the entrepreneurs out there and Box Reef appears to produce an excellent product. EchoTech as we know is on the short list of top of the line systems. Any feedback on either/both appreciated. Too much light? Not enough?

Thanks all.

50 G. 48x12x18
 
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