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Unread 06/08/2012, 10:04 AM   #1
LeslieP
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Want to upgrade CAD 12g lights to LED

I have the CAD 12g tank with refugium & 4x8watt light fixture at work and I'd like to upgrade the lights. Right now I only have zoas, mushrooms & softies in there, but I'd like to be able to put some LPS and maybe hardy SPS. I'd like to upgrade to some LEDs, but there are just so many!! I don't need top of the line; I was hoping to find something for ~$100 or so - is that unrealistic? Any recommendations? Thanks for the help!


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Unread 06/08/2012, 12:25 PM   #2
joelespinoza
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I like my experiences with stevesleds so far. Are you looking for a DIY solution or a finished product?


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Unread 06/08/2012, 02:55 PM   #3
LeslieP
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I was hoping for a finished product. I keep seeing nice looking clip on lights but I don't know if they are strong enough. But I also don't want to get something overpowered for my needs


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Unread 06/10/2012, 09:39 AM   #4
joelespinoza
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Can you show me a picture of your existing tank and light setup? It would give me a better idea what you have to work with.

100 bucks for a nice stand alone LED setup might be rough, I dont have anything that comes to mind.

But one of these (driver): http://www.rapidled.com/mean-well-lp...urrent-driver/

One of these(20w hybrid panel): http://www.ebay.com/itm/EPISTAR-20W-...item33740eb3ae

One of these (20w LED 420nm): http://www.ebay.com/itm/20W-420nm-UV...item3f15015e94

And one of these (heatsink): http://www.ebay.com/itm/120910333715...84.m1423.l2649

All of those together would come out to about $100 and be about the right amount of light for a 12 gallon tank, and it would be pretty cool looking lighting. There are other options for heatsinks if you dont like the cpu style heatsink.



Last edited by joelespinoza; 06/10/2012 at 09:57 AM.
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Unread 06/10/2012, 10:21 AM   #5
ghellin
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You could get 3 of these LEDs that are soon to be released and run them with a single lpc 35-700 from rapid led put them on a 4x4 heatsink with a fan. Then you could build a small acrylic box for next to nothing. The whole thing would ne right at $100 for top end LEDs and give you great color and spectrum.

Link for LEDs.
http://www.cutter.com.au/proddetail....m_medium=email


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Unread 06/10/2012, 04:38 PM   #6
joelespinoza
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ghellin View Post
You could get 3 of these LEDs that are soon to be released and run them with a single lpc 35-700 from rapid led put them on a 4x4 heatsink with a fan. Then you could build a small acrylic box for next to nothing. The whole thing would ne right at $100 for top end LEDs and give you great color and spectrum.

Link for LEDs.
http://www.cutter.com.au/proddetail....m_medium=email
That honestly looks like a terrible waste of money. Why would you start off with the wrong ratios of colors? 1: 410-420nm to 1: Royal Blue, ok sounds good, we could use more in the 400-440nm range. 1: Cool white? errr didnt the reef community kinda decide neutral or even warm white is better than cool white? 1: blue, really? Show me one tank that anyone runs blues and royal blues in the same ratio and looks even somewhat decent?

The only way I see that being useful is for demonstration purposes and using as a guideline, even then I think the cool white should be replaced by neutral or warm and that the blue should be replaced by something else, maybe orange-red or something.

As far as "color and spectrum" of CREE LEDs, I say thats a bunch of bunk. CREEs are relatively efficient and they can be driven hard, however there are many cheaper LEDs that look as good or better.


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Unread 06/10/2012, 07:12 PM   #7
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http://www.cutter.com.au/proddetail.php?prod=cut1343 Dont look bad, they are 410-420nm chips with 3 350mA (the same SemiLEDs as in the above emitters but 3 of them) It looks like 350mA and 4.0 forward voltage are max so if my math is right that is 1.4 watts per emitter or 4.2 watts total and they cost $14.72 each.

This is a 9 emitter EPILEDs chip: http://www.ebay.com/itm/20W-420nm-UV...item3f15015e94 listed at 420-422nm, 350mA and 3.8 forward voltage per emitter however there is 9 of them per chip and they cost $33.50 each.

So basically the cutter ones are a bit less than half the price with slightly more than 1/3rd the wattage, assuming the light emitted per watt is similar (a BIG assumption) the 9 emitter one is a slightly better deal.



Last edited by joelespinoza; 06/10/2012 at 08:09 PM.
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Unread 06/10/2012, 09:47 PM   #8
ghellin
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Quote:
Originally Posted by joelespinoza View Post
Show me one tank that anyone runs blues and royal blues in the same ratio and looks even somewhat decent?
Anybody that has an AI Sol. I think I am confident there are a few out there in use. It's a 1:1:1 ratio XPG:XPE:XPE.

As for different color LEDs I dont use them because I use neutral whites as many do so i can agree there. And as always everyone has their own preference in lighting, I was simply providing options for a small build.


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Unread 06/11/2012, 06:16 AM   #9
LeslieP
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You all have lost me - I just want a simple fixture for medium light corals like LPS. I don't want to have to DIY the lights. So be it if I have to pay a bit more to get the ready made option, I'm just not knowledgeable enough about LEDs to know which ones would be sufficient and which would be overkill. But thank you all for helping.


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Unread 06/11/2012, 06:22 AM   #10
ghellin
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Look at the AI Nano


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Unread 06/11/2012, 08:04 AM   #11
joelespinoza
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LeslieP View Post
You all have lost me - I just want a simple fixture for medium light corals like LPS. I don't want to have to DIY the lights. So be it if I have to pay a bit more to get the ready made option, I'm just not knowledgeable enough about LEDs to know which ones would be sufficient and which would be overkill. But thank you all for helping.
If you dont care about the color dont worry about it, color discussions about LEDs are 99% about aesthetics, the main reason for this is that LEDs produce the required par for corals pretty easily. If you want to keep things super simple just look for a LED fixture in your price range that uses at least 20-40 watts and has some substantial low wavelength light (420-460nm, often called royal blue), or plenty of white light.

Here are some ideas, keep in mind I dont know your tank dimensions, so these are rough:

Ecoxotic (or some other brand) stunner-led-strips, by themselves it would take quite a few to reach 20-40 watts. However, you could likely add to your existing setup. If I was doing this I would get a combo of magenta and royal blue, either mixed or one strip of each: http://www.ecoxotic.com/aquarium-led...ed-strips.html

Something like this alone would not be enough, but 2 of them should work: http://www.amazon.com/Wave-point-12-...nano+led+light

27 watt bulb type: http://www.ebay.com/itm/PAR38-LED-20...item2ebe8c863a

Would be a overkill, but since it has no optics you could adjust intensity down pretty fast by raising it, 120 watt hanging:http://www.ebay.com/itm/120-WATT-COR...item3f15bad08a

Hopefully those gave you some idea.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ghellin View Post
Anybody that has an AI Sol. I think I am confident there are a few out there in use. It's a 1:1:1 ratio XPG:XPE:XPE.

As for different color LEDs I dont use them because I use neutral whites as many do so i can agree there. And as always everyone has their own preference in lighting, I was simply providing options for a small build.
http://www.aquaillumination.com/sol/specs.html is this the accurate tech specs for AI Sols? if so no wonder people find them cold and sterile looking, those ratios look terrible. That says they are using a ratio of 2 cool whites to 1 blue (not royal blue, just 470nm blue) that just sounds horrible, but apparently I like a look warmer than frozen windex.



Last edited by joelespinoza; 06/11/2012 at 08:16 AM.
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Unread 06/11/2012, 10:09 AM   #12
LeslieP
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The tank is 15" long, 13" deep (minus sand) and 9" wide with a nice 3", 3 chambered area in the back for heater, refugium and return pump. I was just looking at some of the nano LED's from one of the big distributors and they had some nice looking ones. Thank you for your help in the amount of watts and wavelength light needed, that helps me a lot! Here are two that I saw:

http://www.marinedepot.com/Hydra_Aqu...LDTN-4-vi.html

http://www.marinedepot.com/Innovativ...i.html#Manuals


I put a set of the chinese-type non-dimmable LEDs on my 55 and while I like them, they are a tad blue for me so I have been thinking that I would add a stunner strip or two to tone it down when I upgrade that tank.


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Unread 06/11/2012, 03:37 PM   #13
joelespinoza
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Be careful of advertising gimicks, neither of those is enough light for a 12 gallon tank in my opinion. While they may claim the are equal to xxx watts one of them is 8 watts and the other is only 4.208 watts and you should be in the market for 20-40 watts.



Last edited by joelespinoza; 06/11/2012 at 03:53 PM.
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Unread 06/11/2012, 03:48 PM   #14
LeslieP
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After reading these posts and doing more research I tend to agree


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Unread 06/11/2012, 03:54 PM   #15
thegoatc
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In my experience LED lighting for a small tank is really not economical


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Unread 06/11/2012, 06:09 PM   #16
joelespinoza
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Quote:
Originally Posted by thegoatc View Post
In my experience LED lighting for a small tank is really not economical
Actually I dont think any LED lighting is economical unless you do it yourself. In my opinion the premade fixtures all seem like crap for what you pay for them. Although it might just be me, I dont really care about being able to dim a fixture from my IPhone or have it make me a sandwich, I just want it to make my tank look great and make my corals happy.

That being said I think that DIY LED lighting is the easiest and cheapest lighting to do right on a nano or pico tank.

My little 5 gallon nano hex I am still working on is a cobbled together system, it has a total of 6 3w LEDs that cost $2.99 each (3 Royal blue for display, 1 neutral white for display and 2 deep red for algae scrubber), I also got the 20 watt 420nm emitter for $32.50. That is 32 watts of LED display lighting and an algae scrubber for the cost of $50.44 (+ shipping).

That is way overboard for this 5 gallon tank, it would be plenty for a 10 gallon. I could have probably been fine with just the 3 watt LEDs, but I wanted to try out the 20 watt 420nm emitter.

The heatsinks are old processor heatsinks and fans I had laying around, and the drivers are a 2000mA 15 volt transformer (an old laptop charger) and a 1050mA 5 volt transformer (an old cellphone charger). So all this was free stuff I had laying around.






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