Show me your DIY LED/T5 Hybrids

[Dan Snyder]

A few pictures of radion 4g pro with/without the T-5 Hamilton Aruba sun T-5 retro moon light LED, and ATI bulbs.

 

[Jordan pitts]

Holy smokes that’s an awesome setup

 

[JoeJoesonoma]

I have a one 48 inch coralife ho t5 with a pair of mars aqua 165 watts. That whole structure is 2 inch 90 deg aluminum angle on a roller bearing setup to move the lights to work on the tank.

 

[KRAKENREEFAQUATICS]

Where did u buy those t5 ballasts?

 

[intricate_reefer]

My new system has issues but I thought I'd share to give you some perspective. It's on a 90g lps dominant, I replaced 2 x 70w maxspect razors; I hate full spectrum leds and led primary just has not worked for me. It's a reef brite supra 2 x 54w t5 with a 21ledusa 50/50 reef pro led strip. T5s are ATI, a true actinic and a blue plus. Leds are 24 x 3w 12k and 24 x 3w 445-445 nm royal blue. It's been about 5-6 weeks and my corals are responding positively, but I am getting more algae on the glass.

The t5s are connected to a timer, there is no dimmer, I wouldn't need one anyway and you could connect them them to a dimmer controller if you wished. The leds have individual dimmers for white and blue, and each channel is connected to a timer. There is an issue with the wiring controlling the separate channels for timers, and it seems 21ledusa customer service has blown my off.

The reef brite fixture is flimsy and industrial looking. Overall I'm happy with the direction of the t5s and a controllable blue/white led hybrid. The total system including timers, bulbs, dimmers, everything was about $3oo.

Know this thread is a few years old but I'm wondering how this light setup performed for you? Im considering this set up for a 48 x 24 x 10 frag system

 

[neltel_7]

what are the LED's?

 

[PR_nano]

Bump - For more pictures/ideas, ordered a Reef Brite dual T5 slim retrofit kit to supplement a Kessil 360WE on a 20gallon but haven't decided how to mount it (Canopy or legs). Since it's a retrofit it makes sense to have it on a canopy.

Here are some pics that I liked, leaning towards something similar to the last canopy, looks great!

 

[AZRipp]

Based upon an ATI Dimmable Sunpower (master) and standard Sunpower (slave) along with 8 Rapid LED Aurora Pucks.

 

[FFKiwi]

I have fun doing it. When I was 18 and getting back into the hobby I really wanted gen 1 radions but couldn't afford them, so I taught myself how to build LED fixtures. I'm now 23 and have gotten pretty handy at it. Both fixtures are controllable from my phone. I could have cleaned up the sunpower retrofit by not mounting the power supply on top of the fixture but I got lazy and didn't want to make the extension cords that would be needed to run it elsewhere and out of sight. I personally don't really care that its mounted on top but I'm sure some people would.

My display tank is the one with the 4 bulb t5 hybrid and I built that LED fixture 3.5 years ago and its still running strong. Building it is nice because I don't have to deal with warranties and crap. I just fix it myself and usually runs me $20-$30 to fix it. The only issue I had was when I switched to screen tops and took my glass tops off. I have 8 wrasses so sometimes they splash and one little droplet of saltwater managed to somehow reach one of my drivers on my display tanks lights, but it was a $25 fix so no biggie. I try to build them to last and so far its doing very well. I'm tempted to re build my DT lights just because my inner nerd wants to test out all the new LEDs that have come out since I built it.

I'm not finished with the sunpower hybrid yet, I plan to add 2 more color channels into the mix. Its not needed but I want to try out some new LED's that I may incorporate into my future builds if I like the results. I have a par meter and the sunpower put 125-150 par on the sandbed of my frag tank when using 4 t5 bulbs, after the retrofit I did it puts just a little over 500 par on the sand bed (I of course have it tuned back). My display tank lights I need to check again because I forgot the par numbers.

The specs for the sunpower is pretty simple, 28 royal blues and 14 neutral whites. I plan to add 6 cree deep blues and 6 luxeon lime leds just to test them out. The LED fixture over my DT has 28 royal blues, 14 neutral whites, 20 hyper violets/uv, 8 reds, 8 greens, 8 cyan's, and 8 true blue cools. Its not to shabby for being built almost 4 years ago.

Wow where the heck do you buy a T5 dimmer box? And how does it plug in/what does it look like? Are you saying that we could make any T5 fixture dimmable somehow?