Upgrading to led, where do i start the %

nathan1986

nathan1986

New member
Im finally getting around to upgrading my girlfriends biocube29 to led lighting. I bought the chinese led box (practically a photon value led fixture) i have the hood all cut to fit the light and all thats left is to make some mounting brackets. My question is where do i start the light percentages at? I know you want to start low but how low. Thanks, nathan
 
This is a hard one without knowing how high you have your fixture and how many channels, but I would say 10% whites and 30% blue. Increase about 10% a week or so.

I'm sure some of the more experienced users here will have some more accurate feedback.
 
I'm running two of the eBay 165w light fixtures on my 65 gallon tank with whites on as low as possible and blues are maybe 20% and it's more than enough lights they will burn things up quick!
 
Then get a flash light so u can c ur corals :) but yes they r about right. Carful,like can bleach corals quickly
 
uploadfromtaptalk1440978176492.jpguploadfromtaptalk1440978213527.jpguploadfromtaptalk1440978266660.jpgi still have some wet sanding and buffing to do on the factory splash guard. But for 2 days of work im happy i was able to fit it in the stock hood
 
That came out good manny. Im not big into dealing with electrical so cutting a hole in the hood and slipping the light thru it seemed easier for me haha hardest part was wet sanding and polishing thru the black section of the splash guard that covered the factory electronics.
 
one other thing to note is the power the LED's are pushing, 1w or 3w, most of the cheap Chinese junk is probably mid range 1W LED's over driven which is why you will start loosing led's after a few months, if that. Most of the "higher end" Chinese junk will use bottom shelf 3w LED's, (think of it like cuts of Beef. Prime, Choice and Select). Select is the bottom shelf LED's. The good thing is you now have a fixture with power supply, so once the LED's start dying you can probably desolder them and replace them with quality stuff. That being said, just watch your corals and adjust accordingly.
 
They are 3w bridgelux and epiled. Thats what they claim anyways. I just removed the light, my buddie has a cnc plasma cutter. So im having him make a nice bracket to mount it solid to the hood.
 
nathan1986 said:
They are 3w bridgelux and epiled. Thats what they claim anyways. I just removed the light, my buddie has a cnc plasma cutter. So im having him make a nice bracket to mount it solid to the hood.
Click to expand...

It depends how hard they drive them. U can have 3w led running at 1 watt or any where in between. Normally u can look up how many milliamps they r being driven at. That will tell u what they r putting out. As mentioned. The closer to 3w they drive them at the sooner they tend to blow :(

Roger
 
uploadfromtaptalk1441073332491.jpggot my bracket made for the hood. Its nice knowing people that have cnc machines lol i wanted to make the retro fit look as nice as possible. The bracket not only securely holds the fixture to the hood but it also covers the imperfections in the hole i cut for it. And as far as the led's lasting, ive read good reviews. The fixture is almost identical to the reefbreeders value fixture
 
Not sure if im going to paint it or not. Just put the light on the tank. 25% blue looked really bright, way brighter than the stock PC bulbs anyways. So i have the blue chanel at 10% and the white at 10%. Ill leave it like that for about a week then ill slowly turn the blues up. Big difference upgrade tho. Hopefully the corals and fish will enjoy it
 
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