LED setup.

[dwilliams87]

Well the dimmable kit I found on there is 99.00 and it has a heat sink, am I looking at the wrong thing?

Aquarium 24 LEDs Dimmable DIY LED kit with optics

 

[dwilliams87]

Will I want a heatsink that goes the entire length of my tank?

 

[p woodard]

No that will work

 

[p woodard]

Will I want a heatsink that goes the entire length of my tank?

I did

 

[dwilliams87]

Awesome, sounds good! Thank you for all of your help! It is def. nice having people to talk to about this. I didn't realize there were so many of us reefers in the area. Great to be a part of the club. Can't wait to meet you guys at the next meeting.

 

[gmoney243]

The 24 kit would be more than enough and it comes with heatsink. For this kit I would get 12 Royal Blue 8 10k cool whites and 4 6500k warm whites. Most do a 2:1 blue:white ratio but this kit is designed for 12 led per driver so u can dim both colors seperate. Its also not pwn dimmable if u want to control dimming with an apex or such you would need 2 meanwell drivers. These driver with kit are manual dim. You will dim these down anyway because 24 is to much for a 20g. After you order you can specify to them how many led of what colors you want.
Sent from my Vortex using Tapatalk 2

 

[dwilliams87]

The heatsink it comes with seems pretty small. Is that standard, I was thinking of getting a larger one like Keith said he did.

 

[Cigar Sherlock]

From what I've read, as long as the LED's are spaced well from each other, the optics will assist with the coverage on your tank. In other words, you don't have to have a heatsink that spans the total length of the tank because the LED optics will have cones of light that cover the sides...depending on which optics you get of course.

 

[mixer911]

I would look at Rapidled.com. If you are only needing about 12 LEDs for that small of a tank, the savings of using Bridgelux over CREE is not that much. Personally I use and tust Cree's. I just priced out 12 LEDs and Lens's for my frag tank and from Rapid it was $54 shipped and I will prob get them in 2 days. Aquastyle is was $45 shipped and they come from china and will take 1-2 weeks. I am willing to pay $9 more for better LEDs and faster shipping personally.

 

[dwilliams87]

mixer911- The only thing is that I like getting the kit in full, and the kits on rapidled are a good bit more expensive.

Cigar Sherlock - What optics do you suggest then?

 

[dwilliams87]

Gmoney243 - I think I'm gonna go with what you suggested. If I do, How do I specify what type of colors I want? and, Do I need to specify what lense and if so what do you recommend? and Which heatsink would you go with? I don't mind buying another one if it will be better for my tank. I have alot of rock and I don't want there to be alot of shaded places. This is all very new to me, however, I think it'll be a fun project. I really want to make my corals "pop" because I have some beautiful ones. With my current lights being so low on the par scale, I would love to do something to bring the color out better and help my acros out. Will this be a big change?

 

[dwilliams87]

Another question I have is how does all of this mount together? Do you just have a heatsink hanging above your aquarium? Or do you put this in something?

 

[mixer911]

mixer911- The only thing is that I like getting the kit in full, and the kits on rapidled are a good bit more expensive.

You can get this kit 12 Ultra Premium LED Do-It-Yourself Retrofit Kit (non-dimmable) - Rapid LED and it would be enough for your system. It is Meanwell drivers and Cree LEDs. Everything you need except a heatsink, which is not even necessary, U channel is cheaper and easier to layout your LEDs on. $85 is not that bad.

How deep is your tank, this will determine your optics.

 

[dwilliams87]

Mixer911 - It is a 20 standard so I think it's 16'' tall. The whites on this kit are from 5000 to 8300k. Why would I not need at least the 10000k? And like I said I'm new so could you explain to me how you know that 12 led system will be enough? I would rather go over what I need and dim it than get it and not have enough.

 

[mixer911]

Mixer911 - It is a 20 standard so I think it's 16'' tall. The whites on this kit are from 5000 to 8300k. Why would I not need at least the 10000k? And like I said I'm new so could you explain to me how you know that 12 led system will be enough? I would rather go over what I need and dim it than get it and not have enough.

With a 16" tall tank you would prob want to use 60 or 80 degree lens's. On the whites I would use 60 and on the blues 80. There are a lot of variables when using optics, just picking 60 or 80 degree for everything is not the way to do it.

12 LEDs will be on the Low side, but at 700 mah you would get pretty good par on the sand if using non dimmable drivers. If you plan on using dimmable drivers then yes, I would go with more. Non dimmable and 20-24 LEDs will cook the top half of your tank unless you hang them 20" above the tank.

For Cool White LEDs 5k to 8.3k is the norm. Trust me they look true 10k. The bridgelux 10k are more blue. If you are wanting growth, then you want the 5k-8.3k range. I even use the Neutral (3,700-5,000K) and Warm Whites (2,600-3,700K ) in my builds. The 10K LEDs are a little high in kelvin for growth, IMO. Using 10k and Blues will look fabulous for colors, but you want growth also. I understand you are new to this as to why I am interjecting here. I would not just throw out some money and hope for the best. I think you should maybe look at others setups and see what you like. You need to have a plan established before just building a fixture. This is why there are so many people out there that end up haveing a bad experience with LEDs.

 

[dwilliams87]

That's a really good idea. Is there anyone in the club that wouldn't mind a visit from a fellow reefer to look at some LED setup's? I'll always bring the beer.

 

[pickupman66]

I know someone at the swap asked me about how i mounted my LED's to my hood. I just got to looking and my tank thread had nothing about it. so I fixed it. this is a pretty good depiction of how i did mine.

https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/large-aquariums-180g/53726-pickupman66s-180-gc-build-10.html#post923047

 

[mixer911]

Another thing to consider with Bridgelux is the Lumens. Per their data sheet a bridgelux 6500k @700 mA will provide 180 lumens, a R5 Cree XP-G at the same 700mA is about 250 lumens. So it does not take two bridgelux to equal one Cree but the 3 bridgelux to 2 Cree is a fair estimate. So if you have 12 Crees it would be equal to 18 Bridgelux LEDs


BTW I used 6500k Bridgelux because there is no data sheets available for the 10000k LEDs.

 

[killereef]

I agree with mixer911, some one like rapidleds, reefledlights, or groupbuyleds. Yes you are paying more but the cree is more efficient, but it also depend on how long you are going to keep the light fixture for the long run cree is the best (IMO). If you are not going to have the fixture for a while then go cheap, but if not, I would pay more to have a better LEDS. Which every LED you go with, color wises it is recommended to have a 60% blue to 40% white. If you are going to get the 24 kit, I would do 8 royal blue and 4 blue. For the white. I would do 8 cool white and 4 Neutral white. You can also and in some red, if so, 2. You could also add in some UV. I would also just used two of those in you tank sizes. Haning kit, I went to lowes and bought the picture hanging wires and bought the wire connectors, if its calls that and I bought a metal bookshelf L bracket. If you dont want that just by a metal conduit pipe and bend it 90 degree yourself by using the hardware store tools.

 

[killereef]

typo with "add" and "and" hanging not haning..... You can replace some blues for the red or UV or just add more in. I just recently build one myself and love it. The only thing I would do with mine is to used a dimmable driver that I can control from my phoe or computer. I do have a dimmable driver on a pot and do recommended them.