DIY Led setup for 50 gallon

[smokey3277]

I am about to purchase my items for my 50 gallon tank which is 36x18x18...I am going to be ordering from RapidLed and was wondering how many leds would I need 36 or 48? I was going to be using a 24" long heatsink.

 

[johnanddawn]

36 would likely do it but i would go 48 - as you can always adjust photo period and such
i think i would do at least 30" of sink though if not even two 16" because of the nature of LED's and espesially if you have optics
2 16" with 24 each would be quite nice

 

[bmac16]

i have 36 on a 23" heatsink with 80 degree optics for my 40B and get perfect coverage at 8" off the water

edit- my heatsink is also 8.5" wide not 4 like the ones from rapid

 

[Glenn]

I'm running a similiar 50g tank and getting ready to build two DIY lights. I found two 10x10 heatsinks (5x10 units welded together) and plan to put 12 Cool White and 12 Royal Blue Cree 3w LEDs on each heatsink. I already have four fans mounted to the heatsinks and the LEDs and four Meanwell drivers are being ordered as part of a Group Buy (sorry - it's Closed now). Once everything arrives, I'll be having fun building them.

For now, I am not using optics .. will worry about them after I see what the tank looks like.

Also, I have an Apex controller that I'll be using to dim the LEDs.

 

[CJO]

I'm running 24 blue XR-Es at 750mA and 12 XP-Gs at 1A on a 65 gallon tank. I'm using a combination of 60 and 80 degree optics. 36 should be fine, but, if you have the ability to dim them, you could be safe with 48. Also, I would definitely look at putting on optics. A lot of light is lost to the sides if you don't.

CJ