I want LED's

[vasinvictor]

I am looking to make the switch from MH to LED in the next couple of months. I spend @ $200 a year on bulbs plus the elevated electric bill. Thus the desire to switch over. I am looking for a unit that will be reliable with good costumer service, allow me to grow my sps the same or better than I do with MH, and not have to pay for a bunch of bells and whistles I don't really care for. I do want to be able to dim it though. I have been looking at two units that seem to fit the bill but I would appreciate any input that you may have. I am trying to stay under the $350 mark per unit. I will need two for my 125g 60 x 18w x 24h. The two unit I am looking at are

Apollo Sunburst uv 5000 at $299
Sunburst UV 5000 - Manually Dimmable! - Apollo Reef LED

and the

Reef Breeder 16" 120w controllable fixture
reefbreeders

The reef breeder has more bells and whistles than I need but I like that it has many more different colors. What are your thoughts on these lights? Are there others that will also fit into the $350 price range?

 

[Rikerbear]

Have you looked at the Ledtric Inspire?

 

[ReefLEDLights]

Have you looked into fixtures using the Cree XT-E.

I've tested these against Brideglux Fixtures and found them to be at least 40% more efficient than the better Bridgelux Imports.

The savings would be about $7 a month in electrical costs.

Also having a fixture that is APEX compatible or has its own sunrise and sunset is a huge plus.

Bill

 

[vasinvictor]

I have looked into the inspire but that is going over my $700+ shipping limit. I believe cree is the way to go but I have yet to find a fixture under the 350 mark using them. Do you know of any?

 

[ReefLEDLights]

I have looked into the inspire but that is going over my $700+ shipping limit. I believe cree is the way to go but I have yet to find a fixture under the 350 mark using them. Do you know of any?

If you DIY you can meet that price point without a housing and optics. Just choose the bins well as there are a lot of variations in the Cree Cool White.

Factory Cree XT-E Fixtures on PAR with the Apollo (Excuse the Pun ;)) run about $50-$250 more but over a two to three year period pay for themselves in electrical savings and extra light.


Bill

 

[DrinkinPepsi]

Panorama Pro LED Module

Simple OneTouch LED Controller

put with the appropriate wall transformer and you might get close. you could save some cash now and get a manual dimmer until you wanted the controller.

you can retro your current hood or make a hood fairly cheap.

 

[vasinvictor]

I don't think the Panorama is the way I want to go. The more I think about it the more I want to go with the more efficient Cree xt-e but would also like the colors that the reef breeder offered. I have a lot more to learn before I am able to make an educated decision.

 

[ReefLEDLights]

I don't think the Panorama is the way I want to go. The more I think about it the more I want to go with the more efficient Cree xt-e but would also like the colors that the reef breeder offered. I have a lot more to learn before I am able to make an educated decision.

Here are a couple if interesting reads.

Feature Article: Effects Of Narrow Bandwidth Light Sources On Coral Host And Zooxanthellae Pigments — Advanced Aquarist | Aquarist Magazine and Blog

http://jeb.biologists.org/content/212/5/662.full.pdf


[url]http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/12/aafeature1


[/URL]

 

[jedimasterben]

OP, whatever fixture you choose, please be sure it is based on a neutral white LED, otherwise your tank will suffer the same anemic look that cool white arrays give, especially on the lower-end fixtures.

 

[Bootstrap]

OP, whatever fixture you choose, please be sure it is based on a neutral white LED, otherwise your tank will suffer the same anemic look that cool white arrays give, especially on the lower-end fixtures.

Neutral white? What kelvin would that be? 4300k

Sent from my DROID RAZR MAXX HD

 

[jedimasterben]

Somewhere around that. No more than 5000k. Just make sure the fixture also uses some cool/standard blue as well as royal blue.

 

[GHill762]

The inspire is priced at $369 with 1yr warranty and free shipping. so you come in at $738 shipped.. from what I have seen they are a pretty good value.

 

[Bootstrap]

Somewhere around that. No more than 5000k. Just make sure the fixture also uses some cool/standard blue as well as royal blue.

Alright. Im trying to get into an led fixture as well. Anything higher than 5k has blue in it, lower than 4k is yellow

Sent from my DROID RAZR MAXX HD

 

[jedimasterben]

Alright. Im trying to get into an led fixture as well. Anything higher than 5k has blue in it, lower than 4k is yellow

The main component of both cool white and neutral white LEDs is blue light. What brings down the color temp is the next hump after the blue one that tells how much red/orange is there. They'll have a bit more green and yellow, too, but it's still a small amount.

Typically, when using neutral white chips, you'll want a 1:2 ratio of NW to RB to get around a 12-14K color with both at 100%, and you can dim to fit your taste. When you mix red with RB, it makes a purple color, so a bare NW and RB array can sometimes carry more of a purple hue than a cool white-based array, but the addition of a few cool blues eliminates the purple. Cyan can also accomplish that, but cool blue seems to be the best at it. About 1 cool blue for every 4 royal blue or so will get rid of the purple.

 

[ReefLEDLights]

If your looking at a Cree Fixture I would avoid the Neutral LEDs as they tend to be yellow looking and offer less PAR due to a reduced 450 nm Spike.

A few companies actually Bin their Cree LEDs for optimal looks. It really makes a difference in looks. As not all Royal Blue and Cool Whites are the same.

Reds, Greens and Violets do little for growth and are personal preference.

The best thing to do is see the fixture over corals and if you can compare fixtures. Most Frag Swaps have vendors with different types of LED Fixtures there you can see which ones really make a difference in colour pop.

Bill

 

[whixley101]

www.stevesled.com is a good custom site that is affordable. The owner Steve is very help and knowledgeable about your reefs needs.

 

[Bootstrap]

www.stevesled.com is a good custom site that is affordable. The owner Steve is very help and knowledgeable about your reefs needs.

I saw this site, my issue with these the reuse if my current fixture, its ugly lol.

Sent from my DROID RAZR MAXX HD

 

[Reef Breeders]

Somewhere around that. No more than 5000k. Just make sure the fixture also uses some cool/standard blue as well as royal blue.

If your looking at a Cree Fixture I would avoid the Neutral LEDs as they tend to be yellow looking and offer less PAR due to a reduced 450 nm Spike.

A few companies actually Bin their Cree LEDs for optimal looks. It really makes a difference in looks. As not all Royal Blue and Cool Whites are the same.

Reds, Greens and Violets do little for growth and are personal preference.

The best thing to do is see the fixture over corals and if you can compare fixtures. Most Frag Swaps have vendors with different types of LED Fixtures there you can see which ones really make a difference in colour pop.

Bill

Even with Bridgelux, I would much rather add 4-5 3500K warm whites, then go all nuetrals. Why? What Bill said, the par is lower with all nuetrals, and the warm whites provide plenty of the yellows and low range reds. Even still, a couple 660nm reds which are not covered by either type of white LED, will add a little more pop. Most of the fixtures mentioned in this thread have 420nm violets, also refered to as UV. Do not confuse them with 380nm true UV, which I would only use on a separate dimmer.

 

[jedimasterben]

I'm about to step on a loooooot of toes here.

If your looking at a Cree Fixture I would avoid the Neutral LEDs as they tend to be yellow looking and offer less PAR due to a reduced 450 nm Spike.

A few companies actually Bin their Cree LEDs for optimal looks. It really makes a difference in looks. As not all Royal Blue and Cool Whites are the same.

Reds, Greens and Violets do little for growth and are personal preference.

The best thing to do is see the fixture over corals and if you can compare fixtures. Most Frag Swaps have vendors with different types of LED Fixtures there you can see which ones really make a difference in colour pop.

Bill

I'd expect no less from a vendor who only sells fixtures using cool white LEDs.

Without the additional red spectrum, not only does the tank just look anemic, but you start to lose non-fluorescent colors. That's great if all you want is that glow from your corals that have green fluorescent proteins, or a few reds that have red fluorescent proteins, but a lot of oranges, yellows, pinks just don't show up because that light simply isn't present for them to reflect.

Comparing any array containing only cool whites to an array based on Bridgelux BXRA or Rebel ES neutrals in the 4-5000k range will be absolutely no contest in color and depth while still retaining the same superior actinic response provided by royal blue LEDs.

As for their PAR value, the entire spectra of the white LED adds to the PAR value. PAR is next to useless as a metric because it simply the total quanity of light emitted - I can build an array that sends out 500 PAR at 24" yet will not grow coral, as the light will be solely composed of 530nm light, a spectra in which little to no photosynthetic activity occurs in corals.

A cool white LED does not emit as much photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) or photosynthetically usable radiation (PUR) as a royal blue LED does (within the same family, of course - comparing an XT-E cool white at 1000ma to a Bridgelux BXCE royal at 700ma, for instance, isn't a valid comparison), simply because a white LED is a royal blue LED with phosphors applied to it - so you wouldn't be able to a 1600mW royal blue chip, apply a phosphor, and still have 1600mW of output in the royal blue spectra.

Taking into account that a cool white array typically uses a 1:1 ratio of cool white to royal blue, and a neutral white array typically uses a 1:2 ratio of neutral white to royal blue, an array based on neutral white will have the same PAR using less total LEDs, or more PAR if using the same amount.


Now, to address your issues with colored LEDs.

Note the massive spikes in red. Despite numerous tests that have been performed (like the ones you linked to earlier), deep red does not bleach coral, at least not in the quantities we DIY'ers recommend. If you blast a coral with too much light of any wavelength it will bleach, and in particular to a wavelength that the coral has no protection built up to.

Green is wholly unnecessary. All white LEDs contain far too much green as it is. What they are lacking is cyan, which is pretty essential in color rendition.

Now violet - this is the 'meat' of photosynthesis. You see that graph above, how it drops sharply after 430nm? If you load up a tank with royal blue chips at 455nm or higher, are you really hitting chlorophyll a, the primary driver of photosynthesis in almost all corals, hard? Nope. It takes violet LEDs to do that. Chlorophyll C1 and C2 are different and can effectively use that 450ish-nm light, no sweat. However, chlorophyll c is present at 1/10 the numbers of chlorophyll a. (note that chlorophyll b, whose primary photosynthetic peak is at 450nm, is not present in zooxanthellae)

Corals are subjected to immense amounts of violet light in the wild: Feature Article: Light in the Reef Aquaria — Advanced Aquarist | Aquarist Magazine and Blog So if violet is the primary driver of photosynthetic activity, why is it unnecessary again?


Am I saying that royal blue and cool white LEDs cannot grow coral? Absolutely not. That has been proven time and time again. Is it optimal for both color and growth? No.


Back to the subject of neutral whites. Some 'light' reading:
LED Aesthetics: What do you really think of your color? - Lighting Forum - Nano-Reef.com Forums

The 'Evil Cluster' revisited - Lighting Forum - Nano-Reef.com Forums

A quote from the OP of that thread, blasterman:

More importantly, cool white rigs show off garish actinic colors better than neutral rigs, and will also show higher artificial PAR numbers. Since they are selling to a market demographic that's 90% under the age of 26 and likely will be in the hobby less than 21 months they want to maximize profit. I thought about building Bridgelux Array or Fortimo Linear based lights, and my rigs destroy halides having done the side by sides, but gave up when I saw all the BS out there.

The people in those threads are partially (if not wholly) the driving force behind the LED arrays we have now.




I think I hit everything I wanted to, but I'm sure I missed something.

 

[jedimasterben]

Most of the fixtures mentioned in this thread have 420nm violets, also refered to as UV. Do not confuse them with 380nm true UV, which I would only use on a separate dimmer.

I would not run any kind of UV LED. Even high-range UV-A is still damaging.