Rapid led color combination? ?

eveningstar15

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I am thinking about getting the solderless coralife biocube 29 dimmable retrofit kit from rapid leds. I don't think I just want to go with the 12 royal blue and 12 cool white leds. Can anyone suggest a good color combination? ?<br/>
 

Reefing Madness

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2 Red
2 Green
6 Cool White
10 Royal Blue
4 UV
 

Reefing Madness

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The white, green and red on one driver, and the rest on the other.
 

TJ's Reef

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Good suggestion above by Reefing Madness though may suggest replacing one of the Reds with a std Blue 480-490nm, A single Red is plenty for that size of tank and the std Blue will broaden the spectrum a bit more.

Cheer, Todd
 

Kworker

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I would just do whites, UV and blues. Adding reds, greens and other colors are a waste. For every 12 LEDs I would do 6 Blue, 2 UV and 4 White. Set it up with a controller also.
 

TJ's Reef

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I would just do whites, UV and blues. Adding reds, greens and other colors are a waste. For every 12 LEDs I would do 6 Blue, 2 UV and 4 White. Set it up with a controller also.


How are they a waste ? Green/Cyan 510-525nm range is an important part of PUR, without Red you do not reflect or see much of it and there is not nearly enough Reds, Greens and Amber in 4 Cool Whites. The reason why so many people still prefer the look of MH and/or T5's are because of there broader spectral output that includes the Reds, Greens and Amber wavelengths. Royal Blue and Violet fluoresce specific pigments in coral as does Green/Cyan and as for Red's to Yellow/Amber if it is not there to reflect we cannot see it.

Cheers, Todd
 

ryanlotz5

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I definitely would add no more than two uv's on a 29 my corals hated uv's ! I have a 60 cube using Steve's LEDs luxeon 3w and have 10 neutral whites 11 cool whites 20 royal blue 10 blue 5 cyan 1green 1 red 1deep red and 2 uv's ! Yes this is extreme over kill but with dimmers for four separate drivers and a typhoon controller to ramp up the LEDs I can blend the exact color tones I want


Sleep eat reef repeat !!!
 

Kworker

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How are they a waste ? Green/Cyan 510-525nm range is an important part of PUR, without Red you do not reflect or see much of it and there is not nearly enough Reds, Greens and Amber in 4 Cool Whites. The reason why so many people still prefer the look of MH and/or T5's are because of there broader spectral output that includes the Reds, Greens and Amber wavelengths. Royal Blue and Violet fluoresce specific pigments in coral as does Green/Cyan and as for Red's to Yellow/Amber if it is not there to reflect we cannot see it.

Cheers, Todd

Show me indisputable proof that they are useful?

In my opinion its all just a gimmick for a company to sell their LED units.
 

SchnitzelReef

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24 LEDs
14- royal blue
4- blue
3- violet/420nm
4-5000k white
(this will give u a nice 18-20k color)

If u like it more 14k, switch out 2 royal blues for 2 5000k white.

It's better to find the color u like, and order the amount of LEDs accordingly. Ya u could do 12 royal blue and 12 white, but then u would have to dimm the whites down dramatically to make a 20k color. I try to order the exact amount of LEDs to match the color I'm shooting for. That way u can make small adjustments, but still run the LEDs at 80-100%. It's a waste of LEDs if you have to run your white channel at 15% to get the color you like, you might as well have just ordered 3 whites and ran them at 100%.
 
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Kworker

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Show me indisputable proof that they are useful?

In my opinion its all just a gimmick for a company to sell their LED units.

PLOS ONE: Red Light Represses the Photophysiology of the Scleractinian Coral Stylophora pistillata

"After week 3, corals grown under red and blue red light at an irradiance of 256 μmol m−2 s−1 (red 256 and blue red 256) started to show necrosis, which continued to progress towards mortality after week 4 and beyond."

With that said. Plain and simple. Coral we keep in our tanks generally are found from 10-30 meters down. Red diminishes at 3 meters.
 

ReefLEDLights

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Red is for lipstick

Below 10 meters its in a quantity moot for photosynthesis.

If your looking for maximum coral photosynthesis the 420-460nm range is best.

I prefer an old school 2:1 Royal Blue:Cool White Mix with a couple of 465-470nm Blue on the Royal Blue side for growth.

To this I would add two Reds and two Greens only for colour tweaking. RGB combined = White...Or almost any other combination...

Lots of shades of white and many different Bins which affect looks.

With the reds and greens on separate dimmable drivers you can control the looks perfectly.

For frag swaps I like the BLUE side < 465nm at 100% the Whites down the Red up and the Green to tweak depending on the coral.

This can be done easily with LDD Drivers and the Storm Controller

Given the Vf range of the LDD driver with a 48VDC supply you can choose channels with 2-15 Cree X series LEDs each.

Lots of recopies out there...Just avoid the yellow/flat look.

Bill
 

trido

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I'd go with;
1 Red

1 Green
6 Cool White
10 Royal Blue
2 Blue
4 UV

I have always had good growth with a combination like this with the whites ran at a just lower % than the blues. It gives about a 12-14K look at even percentages. You can put all 12 blues on one channel and all the rest on the white channel

 
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trido

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I would just do whites, UV and blues. Adding reds, greens and other colors are a waste. For every 12 LEDs I would do 6 Blue, 2 UV and 4 White. Set it up with a controller also.

This sounds to me like a "Generation 1 any fixture" on the market that most reefers have found to be limited in what its capable of. Amost ALL manutactures are using several colors of emitters in their fixtures now days.
 

ReefLEDLights

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This sounds to me like a "Generation 1 any fixture" on the market that most reefers have found to be limited in what its capable of. Amost ALL manutactures are using several colors of emitters in their fixtures now days.

I would have to say that that mix has proven very efficient.

Just remember that the quality Cree X series and Luxion Whites already have those colours covered in their spectrum. The 420-460nm is your primary grow.

Adding a grocery list of colour LEDs without reason or control is the latest example of the heard mentality.

Now if you could control those tertiary colour LEDs intelligently, you would have the ability to emulate the look of any MH or T5 Combo easily....

Bill
 
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Reefing Madness

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Its the look that gets me, not that the red or green are already in the warm whites, its what looks good in the tank, instead of just using the blues and whites.
 

ValorG

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First of all I use a rapid led solderless fixture over my sps tank and my sps colors are great. I also supplement with 2 t5 bulbs over a 75 gallon. I originally had red/green leds but but I got rid of them and replaced them with warm white and neutral white which provides red and green spectrum. Look up how red slows sps growth and helps algae growth. You don't need much white and I think 6 white is overkill. I have 9 whites (cool, neutral, warm) in each fixture which totals 33 leds each and If I could do it again I would go with less whites. My blues are at 100% and my whites are at 15-20% and tank still looks pretty white. Cool whites aren't necesary as royal blue/blue peak at almost the same wavelength.

My suggestion:
12 rb
4 uv
4 blue
2 warm white
2 neutral white
 

trido

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Its the look that gets me, not that the red or green are already in the warm whites, its what looks good in the tank, instead of just using the blues and whites.

Exactly, I bought my first DIY fixture from Bill and my corals did grow. Within a few months though, I changed out some Royal blue for blue and some whites for UV, red and green and have been happier since. Sure the white emitters have that spectrum in them. But is it enough to make the end user happy with all of the corals in their tank? It wasn't for me.
 
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