darkcirca December 30, 2012 Share December 30, 2012 I'm hoping someone on here could lend a few pointers, maybe a few good startup links, or overall suggestions. It's about time to replace my T5 bulbs for my 90 gallon and I'm debating just going with LEDs instead. I had this debate about it last year but held out, but now I really would like to consider it. I've got a standard size 90 gallon with no canopy. The thought was two fixtures hanging from the ceiling, one on each side of the brace. If anyone wants to send some starting points, please do. I want to look into this during the week and get something ordered hopefully soon. A DIY option could be considered, but I'm looking at a fast setup time for this (aka before the end of January). I'm actually due with our first child mid-February, so I want this taken care of before. The husband will do most of the work, I just need to come up with the answer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sharkey18 December 30, 2012 Share December 30, 2012 Are you keeping sps? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darkcirca December 30, 2012 Author Share December 30, 2012 Are you keeping sps? Forgot about that one. I've got a mixed reef, mostly soft corals, but some LPS and SPS scattered in there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MBVette December 30, 2012 Share December 30, 2012 Why don't you get in the new evergrow led group buy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PotomacBoater December 30, 2012 Share December 30, 2012 The research I've done point to two options Either "build your own" - cheaper, more customizable, but might need a little more skill http://www.rapidled.com/standard-90g-tank-dimmable-kit/ or get in on the Evergrow group buy (either two D120's or possibly just one IT2080) Great price by getting in on the group buy ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darkcirca December 30, 2012 Author Share December 30, 2012 (edited) Why don't you get in the new evergrow led group buy? I'm looking into it some, my only concern is timeframe for delivery. I'd prefer to have something here by mid January, giving myself time to setup prior to the arrival of this child. Yea yea, I totally dropped the ball on doing this in advance. My brain is not working to full capacity anymore. Looks like I may be looking into DIY options. We are more than capable of it, just lazy I believe last year we were looking into the AI Sol. Edited December 30, 2012 by darkcirca Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STEVE December 30, 2012 Share December 30, 2012 Capt Ron has a setup of Maxpect LED's for sale....if your intrested check it out in the for sale section....fyi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supernova26 December 30, 2012 Share December 30, 2012 If DIY is what you want to do I would advice on a mixture of Cree and bridgelux. Do not put them in the same driver. Cree are the top of the line led but to me bridgelux has better colors. For a 90 I would use 60 degree optics for better penetration. 72 LED is what I would recommend. The color mixture is up to personal preference but to many cool whites will wash it out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimlin December 30, 2012 Share December 30, 2012 i would just get the evergrow. too much work building it, plus it would cost more to order the parts than to get the evergrow lights. even with the baby, i dont think it would take much time to set it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM December 30, 2012 Share December 30, 2012 I'm working up a DIY layout for my coming 75 gallon one. The lighting forum at nano-reef.com is pretty good for talking about "full spectrum" LED layouts. Lots of different strategies there. The reef lighting nerds there like the Maxspect Razor, btw, of all of the non-DIY ones. Prob need 2 of the 120W ones of those to cover 90g. They're really pretty looking. Very thin and quiet and come with built in dimming controller so you don't have to rig something. I may still go with that for my 75 which is just a little shallower than your 90 because they're so pretty. The evergrow ones look like a really good buy for Bridgelux LED's. Would get in on that if I wasn't perverse and wanting to do it myself. When I start a build thread after my stuff gets here in a week I will go into detail on building the lights. Been calculating mA, W, V, lm, mW, etc, for about a week now and I think I'm settling on a config, but it may still change. Won't be done by mid-January, though. Congrats on the new addition. Make sure you practice good quarantine procedures. 8) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reefn December 30, 2012 Share December 30, 2012 I built 3 units so far - 5 more to go. 1x24 LED (all are 60 deg, dimmable plus 4 Moons) for my 30 gal 2x36 (20x60 deg and 52x40 deg, dimmable plus 8 Moons) for my 120 gal Fantastic PAR readings, great reliability, FAR less heat gain and I'm guessing my electric usage has dropped significantly too. The process is easy, the results are great. The hardest part was figuring out the right pieces to buy and from where. I settled on RapidLED for the Dimmable LED kits, Heatsink USA and a combination of Cables and Connectors, Minute-Man Electronics and Lowes for wiring and hardware. [Hoping I can post pictures] Here are the 120 gal units before installation: I still need 4 fixtures for my 240 gal plus 1 for the refugium and intend to build those too. Take the plunge - you'll love the challenge. Keith Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ridetheducati December 30, 2012 Share December 30, 2012 I'm hoping someone on here could lend a few pointers, maybe a few good startup links, or overall suggestions. It's about time to replace my T5 bulbs for my 90 gallon and I'm debating just going with LEDs instead. I had this debate about it last year but held out, but now I really would like to consider it. I've got a standard size 90 gallon with no canopy. The thought was two fixtures hanging from the ceiling, one on each side of the brace. If anyone wants to send some starting points, please do. I want to look into this during the week and get something ordered hopefully soon. A DIY option could be considered, but I'm looking at a fast setup time for this (aka before the end of January). I'm actually due with our first child mid-February, so I want this taken care of before. The husband will do most of the work, I just need to come up with the answer. General DIY LED information: Royal Blue 440-450 nm Cree or Luxeon Rebel Neutral White 5000k Cree or Luxeon Rebel True Violet 400 - 430 nm from SemiLed Ocean Coral White Deep Red 660 nm Cree/Luxeon Cool Blue 470 nm Cree/Luxeon Cyan 495 nm Cree/Luxeon I built 3 units so far - 5 more to go. 1x24 LED (all are 60 deg, dimmable plus 4 Moons) for my 30 gal 2x36 (20x60 deg and 52x40 deg, dimmable plus 8 Moons) for my 120 gal Fantastic PAR readings, great reliability, FAR less heat gain and I'm guessing my electric usage has dropped significantly too. The process is easy, the results are great. The hardest part was figuring out the right pieces to buy and from where. I settled on RapidLED for the Dimmable LED kits, Heatsink USA and a combination of Cables and Connectors, Minute-Man Electronics and Lowes for wiring and hardware. [Hoping I can post pictures] Here are the 120 gal units before installation: I still need 4 fixtures for my 240 gal plus 1 for the refugium and intend to build those too. Take the plunge - you'll love the challenge. Keith What drivers did you use? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM December 30, 2012 Share December 30, 2012 (edited) What drivers did you use? I'm curious about this too. I'm leaning towards Steve's LEDs drivers and posted my current guess at a build in the DIY forum just now. Only reason I'm not thinking of his Luxeon Rebel ES emitters over Cree XTE's is that he doesn't have optics available for his 3-up stars yet, and I want to hang my lights up off the water. Reefn, do you have any pics of those over the tank? I'm curious how high you have them and if you are seeing lots of light on the floor with no optics or if you think it's OK. I really like the look of your build. You did a nice job of making them not look very DIY. 8) Edit: I reread what you posted, and saw that you are using optics. You just don't have them installed in that picture. Do you get the "disco" effect folks talk about with your emitters that far apart? If disco is a myth, it would make building one much easier and make it much more flexible on optics. Edited December 30, 2012 by AlanM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zygote2k December 30, 2012 Share December 30, 2012 I have a Chucelli built fixture that is 3 channel DIY. 36x3w. It lights a 36" cube perfectly. If I were buying lights today, I'd replace it with one D120 and be satisfied that it's plenty of light. Go with 2 for a 4' tank. Height makes a big difference in coverage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reefn December 30, 2012 Share December 30, 2012 I used 8 Mean Well ELN-60-48P dimmable drivers from RapidLED for this 72 LED build. I used more power than needed just in case I wanted to add LEDs to any of the strings in the future. I also set the output of each driver to about 90% of recommended maximum power for each string - had to go buy a multimeter with a 10A setting to get that dialed in. This build has been running about a month now. At this point, there are only two things I plan to do differently. I'll probably add a bit more blue to each blue string - but wait until my 240 gal build to tinker with that - probably won't redo this on the 120 at all. Color looks like about equivelant to 12K on the 120 and I prefer about 14K-ish range when I ran Metal Halides. I could dial back the Cool Whites a bit but am in no hurry to do so. The only thing really left to do on the 120 gal build is to change out my wiring nut connection for 4-pin DIN plugs on each Driver, which I already ordered and received but haven't installed yet. That will clean up the installation a lot. The other thing I am likely to do differently is to change the direction of my wiring runs. Right now I have 2 strings of Cool White and 2 strings of Royal Blue on each unit and they all run front to back. For my next build, I think I'll wire the strings left to right so that I can control the lighting in layers from the front, middle and rear of the aquarium indepentantly. More light up front, a bit less in the middle, and even less in the rear. My recollection is that my PAR readings were about 1000 in the rear at the top of my rock to about 500 in the front sandbed. Lights are mounted within the canopy about 3" above the splash guard. On the 120 gal build--- Lights are running at about 80% in this picture. The shadowed sides are intentional to accommodate the shrooms. The light units sit on angle-iron - spaced & held in place with long bolts. Drivers and Dimmer: Here are a couple of pictures of the 30 gal unit: I intentionally started with 30 gal, then did the 120 gal - each of these builds has provided a lot of information and has guided what I will do with the 240 gal build. As stated earlier, only two changes likely for the 240 gal build - a bit more blue and side to side lintensity control. Installation though is likely to be quite different. Keith Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darkcirca December 30, 2012 Author Share December 30, 2012 Thanks for all the info. Gives me something to sift through tomorrow at work. From reading so far, we are still leaning towards AI Sol along with upgrading to the Apex (From AC Jr). Don't want to spend a huge fortune, but definitely want to upgrade. Loved my Aquactinics fixture while we've had it (which is years), but it definitely is time for a change. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyD December 31, 2012 Share December 31, 2012 I have blue Cree LEDs on my 90 and both blue and white LEDs on my 175 that I built myself. You're more than welcome to take a look. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zygote2k December 31, 2012 Share December 31, 2012 D120 clean, sleek, simple. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldReefer December 31, 2012 Share December 31, 2012 Thanks for all the info. Gives me something to sift through tomorrow at work. From reading so far, we are still leaning towards AI Sol along with upgrading to the Apex (From AC Jr). Don't want to spend a huge fortune, but definitely want to upgrade. Loved my Aquactinics fixture while we've had it (which is years), but it definitely is time for a change. I just freed up 2 Sol Blues from my setup that I don't need anymore. The Apex integration is great with the AIs, but I would look seriously at the D120s for better spectrum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PotomacBoater December 31, 2012 Share December 31, 2012 Is two D120's better then 1 IT2080? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest thefishman65 December 31, 2012 Share December 31, 2012 dark circa, It sound like you have decided not to go DIY. IMHO a good thought if you are expecting in February (mine where both early). My projects never go as planned and take longer than expected. However, if you change your mind or want to supplement your LEDs. I will open a group buy given enough interest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ridetheducati December 31, 2012 Share December 31, 2012 Is two D120's better then 1 IT2080? The D120 does not have a digital controller as the IT2080 does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PotomacBoater December 31, 2012 Share December 31, 2012 But you can use an AC iii to act as a digital controller, correct? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM December 31, 2012 Share December 31, 2012 To turn on and off, yes. Not to dim, that I'm aware of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zygote2k December 31, 2012 Share December 31, 2012 You can dim lights or variable speed pumps with the Apex. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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