led question

[sedrostyle]

A local guy I talked to said he bought a 36 led kit from rapid led for his 30 gallon cube, says its a bit overkill.
also said to get a manual dimmer for sure.

I am really looking in to ordering my setup for my 29 gallon and eventually my wifes 20.
He told me i would be fine with 24 leds on my 29 gallon.
The way I figure it is 3wtt lights thats only 72 per gallon

Is led watts per gallon different than t5s and such?

Going for a full whatever coral reef I want in my 29 with minimal fish.

also last question to pick at, what do you guys think I should go with for the lenses? 60 degress for spread and penatration?

Thanks in advance everyone
Love the forum, and love the DiYers

 

[mojoreef]

You cant really use the watts per gallon for lighting and really cant use it for Leds. If you are going with a DIY you kind of want to use groups of twelve (as thats what the drivers do) So yea 24 should be ok as long as their 3 watters. So what you would want to do is to have as much spread on the heatsink to cover the tank as much as you can. As per optics take a peek at the carclo ripple optics their very nice. If you want dimable then look to the Eln 60-48D.

One last thing dont forget to check reefledlight.com (one of our sponsors) they have some good prices and their customer service is outstanding.


Mojo

 

[sedrostyle]

yea i think the heatsinks they sell are four inch by 9 inch drilled for thirtysix leds.... that seems a litttle small for the tank to spread it out. my tank is thirty inches long so 9 inches long would be enough for the center. does this mean i ened two? sorry for writing this in awierd format my phone wont let me use numbers or even tab things out.

 

[trido]

yea i think the heatsinks they sell are four inch by 9 inch drilled for thirtysix leds.... that seems a litttle small for the tank to spread it out. my tank is thirty inches long so 9 inches long would be enough for the center. does this mean i ened two? sorry for writing this in awierd format my phone wont let me use numbers or even tab things out.

ReefLEDlights.com sells 9"x24" heat sinks which would be perfect for a 30" long tank.

 

[mojoreef]

www.heatsinkusa.com


Mojo

 

[sedrostyle]

thanks again, i will be checking into it. hopefully ordering parts soon.
I really need some corals for my 29.
Cant decide weather to do a sump fuge first, or lighting

 

[trido]

Mojo, somehow the link you posted was stolen by another web site. Your post shows HeatsinkUSA but when I click the link I get ported to Heatsinks.com. a generic site.

 

[Katchupoy]

You did not mention what you want to keep. Try this simple calculator. Hope this helps.

 

[sedrostyle]

mainly it will be lps and sps. when i get the lighting. reef setup with one maybe two fish. led lighting is next... sump /fuge depending if i go bigger tank or if i stick with these for a bit

 

[mojoreef]

http://www.heatsinkusa.com/

weird

mike

 

[trido]

You did not mention what you want to keep. Try this simple calculator. Hope this helps.

Thats a great calculator. Some how I knew my fixture would be in the "way overkill" range for my tank

 

[mojoreef]

I dont know about that Dwayne, My lighting is getting 500 par at 12 inches and the calculator is telling me that its only good for softies, lol


Mike

 

[eww]

Mike did you adjust the factor so the led count showed 220?

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

 

[sedrostyle]

i couldnt get the calculator via mobile. im just going with 5 UVs, 4 royal blues 4 regular blues, 12 whites and 3 moonlights. in a 4x23" heatsink by usa. crappy part i just realized is with the uvs their rated at700 ma max and so ill need a seprate driver for those 5. the blues are 1000 max and white ofcourse is 1300. ughfta

 

[DolphinLVR]

You did not mention what you want to keep. Try this simple calculator. Hope this helps.

What would be neat is for the calculator to also show you the breakout of LED's by Color!

I know hard to do that based on the multitude of options for LED's

 

[mojoreef]

Ok I did now, so it went to 15. anyway I think its ok to screw around with but not really a way to figure out how to build a light, their are so many other things to put into play.


Mojo

 

[Katchupoy]

Ok I did now, so it went to 15. anyway I think its ok to screw around with but not really a way to figure out how to build a light, their are so many other things to put into play.


Mojo

You are correct Mike, that is just a guideline to start with. Its just a general approach, then as you learn and learn more about LEDs then you can design better numbers to what you want. This also consider deeper tanks because it only assumes the surface area, I just usually suggest one step up if you have a non-traditional deeper tanks. I should be able to incorporate it in the math if you include how deep (top to bottom) is your tank. For now, it will do.

Also spacing of leds plays a big factor with par. Assuming you have a 4 feet tank and 12 led spread with 2.5" led spacing, then it will be different, with the same 12 leds but with 0.5" spacing group by 6 leds.