Led lighting opinion

Reef Aquarium & Tank Building Forum

Help Support Reef Aquarium & Tank Building Forum:

josh88

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 6, 2012
Messages
637
Location
Vancouver, Washington
Ok so I've been looking at rapid led, and came across aqua style Led lighting. Does anyone have experience with aqua style light.

HTC EVO
 
Not personally but did a you tube secarch for "aquastyle led kit" and got some hits.
Looks like the same drivers and LEDs you get if you do a search on eBay but someone tracked down all the parts
And put them in a easy to buy kit.
 
Aqua style uses bridgelux LEDs. People will tell you that they are crap, however if built right it will do what you need. The efficacy is less then what you may get from a Cree or a Phillips Rebel. If it was my build I would save and get something a little more efficient. Just my opinion. It is almost like buying craftsman, or harbor freight. It will work and do its job, but for how long. Just my opinion.

Phillips luxeon x 48 = 120.00

Not sure what you are looking at getting but you can def buy better quality and stay within a budget.
 
Yeah I was noticing their white light was only 10000k which I personally don't want I'm more looking for 12k to 14k so it seems rapidled is what I'm saving for

HTC EVO
 
Remember, though you are looking for a certain temperature rating, in LED's you control that with the combination of blues to whites, unless you are only using white. I like to mix my whites with CW and NW. I also use Rapid, and love their customer service. Though I am a fan of the Phillips Rebels I buy almost all of my other parts between Rapid and Heatsink USA
 
420 is violet not blue. and also dont forget about reefledlights.com or stevesled.com i also go for the 2 to 1 white ratio. also dont forget red and green and violet.
 
I'm not to cool with throwing only 2 red in my setup. Don't understand the point in only 2. It would not cover through the tank right? .And violet is fine now that you mention it. I don't see the disadvantages to using them instead of blue I guess, but I guess I don't really know enough about leds. Lol.

HTC EVO
 
Last edited:
coral absorb light in the royal blue and blue spectrums in my opinion the violet help with algea controll
 
Dang! That's a sweet build. But 600+ for an led build for my jbj, that's a lot. If I got the setup made for the jbj through rapid led, how hard would it be to add like 4 extra red led.

HTC EVO
 
not hard at all just add them to the white strings i can totally help u with this. and this was just for my 20g. that is a base price for everything and 40 leds. just add 3.50 for ea additional led u needed. i could also build cheaper i just went all out and made it look good. although the case and cosmetics cost 180.
 
give me tank specs ill shoot u a price. ill give u low dirt bottom. an ill charge super cheap to build if ud like.
 
Let me know what ya can do. I'm looking into something else as well, I may wait a bit longer for the price of led kits to come down a bit more. Not sure

HTC EVO
 
With it going into a JBJ, you really only need 24 LED's. In order to cut a little bit of the cost I have listed two different possible configurations that may help you out.

JBJ 24LEDs non dimmable with only one control - meaning that you will not be able to adjust color temperature just intensity.

6x CW Phillips Luxeon = 17.94
6x WW Phillips Luxeon = 17.94
12x Rb Phillips luxeon = 35.88
1x meanwell driver = 33.00
1x heatsink = 22.00
then include 40.00 for misc (wiring, potentiometers, and solder)
= 166.76.

For color control you will have the same equipment excet for the added driver. With this set up you will be able to control more of the color temperature. Adjust whites and blues to get the spectrum that you want

6x CW Phillips Luxeon = 17.94
6x WW Phillips Luxeon = 17.94
12x Rb Phillips luxeon = 35.88
2x meanwell driver = 66.00
1x heatsink = 22.00
then include 40.00 for misc (wiring, potentiometers, and solder)
= 199.76
 
And as far as teh red goes I would really only add 1 if you go that route. The red is a strong light and will over power alot of your other colors. On my 180 I had 3, one on each heatsink and it really was noticable. You will gain some spectral difference but really not sure if it is worth it on such a small tank. Also I would not use optics. In my opinion optics should not be used unless your tanks are over 30" deep. Again this is just my opinion.
 
Back
Top