LED DIY questions

[Laurie]

I am ditching my VHO/T5 lighting and building an LED setup.

 

My tank is 18"x72"x24"h. The current lights hang 10" above the water level. I have 2 - 72" VHO - 1 white and 1 actinic, and 3 - 60" T5 - all actinic. All my corals, mostly softies and LPS are growing like crazy.

 

I am looking at RapidLEDs and Steve'sLED. Both have good review, technical support and great reference materials available.

 

The questions I have:

 

Heatsinks - From Steve'sLED, they have an aluminum square heatsink tube. And a compatible pressurizing cooling fan that interfaces nicely with the heatsink. Looks very efficient.

Any comments about this kind of heatsink. It's quite different from the standard cooling fins.

 

Cree or Luxeon - When I first started researching LEDs, Cree was popular. Now there is the Philips Luxeon too. They both look good and plenty of color choices.

Any recommendations, pro or cons.

 

Moonlighting - Do I need a special "moonlight LED" or can I use Royal Blue. Looks like they are the same wavelength.

 

UV - Is it necessary. A while back I read that LEDs don't provide the UV that corals need to grow well and that they fade over time without it. Mixing LEDs with T5s was better than all LEDs.  Is this myth or true. What is the general opinion now? I could keep the T5s and replace the VHO with LEDs. But I'd rather get rid of the flourescents altogether.  RapidLED sells a UV LED. Do you need an LED specifically labeled UV or is that just a Royal Blue.  If I go all LED, should I plan to include UV LEDs.

 

Any comments or experience  you can share on these questions would be greatly appreciated.

[gmerek2]

LEDs are light. They grow things my corals have good color. My advice is if it ain't broke and good growth, don't fix it the LEDs do save some electric and maintenance though! I hooked mine up to the watt meter the other day. Y'all would be surprised at the readings!

[Neto]

I am ditching my VHO/T5 lighting and building an LED setup.

 

My tank is 18"x72"x24"h. The current lights hang 10" above the water level. I have 2 - 72" VHO - 1 white and 1 actinic, and 3 - 60" T5 - all actinic. All my corals, mostly softies and LPS are growing like crazy.

 

I am looking at RapidLEDs and Steve'sLED. Both have good review, technical support and great reference materials available.

 

The questions I have:

 

Heatsinks - From Steve'sLED, they have an aluminum square heatsink tube. And a compatible pressurizing cooling fan that interfaces nicely with the heatsink. Looks very efficient.

Any comments about this kind of heatsink. It's quite different from the standard cooling fins.

 

Cree or Luxeon - When I first started researching LEDs, Cree was popular. Now there is the Philips Luxeon too. They both look good and plenty of color choices.

Any recommendations, pro or cons.

 

Moonlighting - Do I need a special "moonlight LED" or can I use Royal Blue. Looks like they are the same wavelength.

 

UV - Is it necessary. A while back I read that LEDs don't provide the UV that corals need to grow well and that they fade over time without it. Mixing LEDs with T5s was better than all LEDs.  Is this myth or true. What is the general opinion now? I could keep the T5s and replace the VHO with LEDs. But I'd rather get rid of the flourescents altogether.  RapidLED sells a UV LED. Do you need an LED specifically labeled UV or is that just a Royal Blue.  If I go all LED, should I plan to include UV LEDs.

 

Any comments or experience  you can share on these questions would be greatly appreciated.

I recently got most of my parts from ledgroupbuy.com check them out.

 

For my heatsink, since I have a cube tank, I chose a heatsinkusa.com squared shape one.

 

Cree or Luxeon are both very good. I chose CREE because thats what LEDgroupBuy has...

 

Moonlight is a personal choice, I chosed a warm white led, other people use red too.... Make sure you get a very wide optic such as a 90 or even a 120 degree..

 

UV is not needed but "HyperViolet" is IMO is necesary because it provides a different spectrum and provides very good coral growth.

 

When building a led fixture, make sure you have a mixture of warm whites, neutral whites, red, cyan, royal blue, blue and hyper violet so that you cover all the light spectrum... Check out my project build for ideas. 

[Neto]

Here is my recent build: http://wamas.org/forums/topic/60223-diy-led-fixture-jarduino/

[Matt LeBaron]

I posted a build thread for a Rapidled Kit here if you're interested. I've been very happy with it.

[Laurie]

Thanks for your input. I checked out LEDGROUPBUY. Looks like another good source.

Matt - I did read your thread and it is full of very helpful info. I was looking at Rapid LEDs kits. But I want to have more varied spectrum than they offered. I also plan to set it up with more dimmer controls to be able to adjust the color groups. Probably more than I will really need. It's like playing with a pic in photoshop.

 

I was hoping that someone out there has experience with the tubular heatsinks, from Steve'sLEDs, that they could share.

[Matt LeBaron]

What spectrum's are you looking to include?

[Deavo]

I purchased from Rapid LED and they offer a quality product for not a ton of cash. Their service is top notch and don't be surprised if they email you with questions about your tank/plans instead of just blindly shipping you a product that may be the wrong item for you.

[Laurie]

My starting point is 2:1 RoyalBlue and Neutral White. But I want to be able to adjust to enhance colors from certain corals. So I am considering adding blue, cyan, green, red, cool and warm white, UV and moonlighting. In looking at spectrum graphs, there is overlap from some colors. Like warm white will give me red, yellow and green. But it may be too white. So it may be better to do a few of the individual colors instead.