chinese led lights

[RDHDDRAGON]

Originally Posted by submersible

The general consensous is that they are not strong enough. Although people have had success using them....

One person who posted in this thread with a link to pictures of growth:



So either the pics are photoshopped, or they can actually grow corals.

Mine are definitely not photoshopped. I welcome anyone who wants to come by and see them. I am fixing to post my newest pic to that link. I have recently ordered some uv strips to see if it will help bring back the red i lost. It was only in acans and zoas though, the red turned orange. In my chalices the red stayed red and is as beautiful as always.
Corals that were originally orange are gorgeous glow in the dark orange now.
All types of shrooms hate them. Zoas love them and are just multiplying like crazy.


As far as heatsinks and heat go, the leds are mounted to aluminum on mine. The air coming out the fans is cool. I can put my hand on the bottom of the fixture and it is warm, but not hot. You can hold your hand on it no problem at all.

[TropTrea]

Originally Posted by tntneon

-Do say whites thend to shift to more red or bleu , when they heat up ?

greetingzz tntneon

On a red LED from 25 C at 100% flux, at 150 C the flux drops as low as 50% while a blue only drops to about 85%. If the white act the same way then you will have a considerable shift to blue.

They do not show the color shift for whites but do give a chart of the loss of light intensity as the heat up. On the colores (blue and royal blue) they list a possible frequency shift but do not say which way it goes.

Therefore I'd me more worried about loss of brightness as the LEDs heated up and if they got too hot an actual shorteng of there lif span more than anything else.

[TropTrea]

Originally Posted by RDHDDRAGON

As far as heatsinks and heat go, the leds are mounted to aluminum on mine. The air coming out the fans is cool. I can put my hand on the bottom of the fixture and it is warm, but not hot. You can hold your hand on it no problem at all.

I'm using Allumnium chanelling with my LED's mounted to it. The Channeling probably heats up 10 to 15 degrees C after the LED's are on for 8 hours. But even after a half hour the LED's temselves are extremly hot. If you touch tem you can barely keep your hand on them without thinking you get burned but they are not quite hot enough to burn you.

[Snausy]

I actually just read this whole thread and while I was VERY close to pulling the trigger about halfway through, now I'm just tired...

My big concern is the size of my tank. 300 gallons, 96"X24"X31"H. Being 31" deep I want good light penetration. I always pictured LED's on my ceiling with very tight optics. I thought that looked awesome in some DIY threads where they had lights four or five feet above the tank but virtually no spillage. Currently only a FOWLR so the par is not critical. Really it's an aesthetic thing but I want the option to add corals later if I want to.

Like everyone else I've been waiting. I have a 4ft T5 fixture over my 8ft tank atm and it's killing me! Last thing to upgrade from my 100-300 move.

Any suggestions? What would you put over your 8ft 300g tank? Could I get away with only 3 of those black boxes?

[tntneon]

Originally Posted by TropTrea

... If the white act the same way then you will have a considerable shift to blue... .

-I always thoughed that the light of my fixture is about 12 °K when the cycle of 100 % bl/ 100% white started and when heated up it's more like 15°K ( a little bit bleuer) , it can be that it's only in the mind or that my eyes have to adjust to the bright light.
But it never been more red (the light spectrum when heated up that's for sure.

Originally Posted by Snausy

...Any suggestions? What would you put over your 8ft 300g tank? Could I get away with only 3 of those black boxes?

-I'm gonna use a 3 X 48 W leds box + 60 w led box + 4 X 39 W of t5 to lit my 154 G.
It's gonna be an SPS system , so i think it would be fine for soft's but for sps corals i would personaly have at least one more box IMO .

greetingzz tntneon

[Phishguy]

I think I remember reading somewhere that aquastyle will actually solder and assemble for a fee.. Can anyone confirm that or am I mixing something up?

[TropTrea]

Originally Posted by Snausy

I actually just read this whole thread and while I was VERY close to pulling the trigger about halfway through, now I'm just tired...

My big concern is the size of my tank. 300 gallons, 96"X24"X31"H. Being 31" deep I want good light penetration. I always pictured LED's on my ceiling with very tight optics. I thought that looked awesome in some DIY threads where they had lights four or five feet above the tank but virtually no spillage. Currently only a FOWLR so the par is not critical. Really it's an aesthetic thing but I want the option to add corals later if I want to.

Like everyone else I've been waiting. I have a 4ft T5 fixture over my 8ft tank atm and it's killing me! Last thing to upgrade from my 100-300 move.

Any suggestions? What would you put over your 8ft 300g tank? Could I get away with only 3 of those black boxes?

the narrowest beam lens I know of are 40 degree which would normaly work on a 31" tall tank. But depending on how high your ceiling is above the tank you would probbaly get some spill of light around the tank.

for LED lighting on your tank I would look at something close to 300 watts minimum. If you wanted to go eventualy into SPS corals consider going 400 watts of LED's minimum.

[lil_man72]

Originally Posted by Snausy

I actually just read this whole thread and while I was VERY close to pulling the trigger about halfway through, now I'm just tired...

My big concern is the size of my tank. 300 gallons, 96"X24"X31"H. Being 31" deep I want good light penetration. I always pictured LED's on my ceiling with very tight optics. I thought that looked awesome in some DIY threads where they had lights four or five feet above the tank but virtually no spillage. Currently only a FOWLR so the par is not critical. Really it's an aesthetic thing but I want the option to add corals later if I want to.

Like everyone else I've been waiting. I have a 4ft T5 fixture over my 8ft tank atm and it's killing me! Last thing to upgrade from my 100-300 move.

Any suggestions? What would you put over your 8ft 300g tank? Could I get away with only 3 of those black boxes?

you would need atleast 4, one covers about a 24" square. you could keep most corals but the sps corals would have to be placed higher up under the fixtures.

[BigCountry74]

X2 you need 4 boxes over a 8' tank.

I run 3 over my 6' tank and that's perfect.

4 and you should be good to go. The 3w boxes are definitely bright enough. I picked up some frags to start testing the lights on Friday and they are all doing well. I had to move them all to the bottom (tank is 24" deep).

The biggest adjustment to LEDs for me is the mental thing. You keeping telling yourself "these lights are not bright enough" because there is no heat generated, but they are definitely as bright, if not brighter than MH...

[TropTrea]

Originally Posted by BigCountry74

X2 you need 4 boxes over a 8' tank.

I run 3 over my 6' tank and that's perfect.

4 and you should be good to go. The 3w boxes are definitely bright enough. I picked up some frags to start testing the lights on Friday and they are all doing well. I had to move them all to the bottom (tank is 24" deep).

The biggest adjustment to LEDs for me is the mental thing. You keeping telling yourself "these lights are not bright enough" because there is no heat generated, but they are definitely as bright, if not brighter than MH...

what people forget is that is a lot more to lighting than simply how bright a tank is. If we were just concerned about brightness then we would all be using just XM-L cool White LED's since they give off the most Lum's per watt of power. But everyone that has worked with corals for any lenght of time will quickly realize that those LED's do not put out nearly enough short wavelenght light to keep our corals happy.

Getting the proper balance between blue green, and red light is very important. Your balancing between the needs of the coral, which changes between different corals, and your personal eye taste which changes from one person to another. Most off the rack lights are mearly a compomise based on what the manufacturer thinks will work best for the biggest part of there market.

Sure with a dimmable you can custom yur lighting. But keep in mind when your running your LED's at 50% power your not running them the most effeciently. Why buy 60 LED's running and run them at 50% when you could get the same light from 30 runnining at 100% power.

[salsipuedes]

I just went by a not so local LFS in lakeworth, FL... they have a bunch of LED black boxes, 55 - 3watt leds ran at 2 watts on their frag tanks. Looked fine to me, colors were great, full polyp extension, good growth.... on the other hand, these are frags tanks (shallow) and its at a lfs, so no gauging of the long term aspects of it. I'll take pics next time I go if the owners say its ok.

[jrp1588]

I just ordered a couple of the ebay black boxes. 55 3watt epistar chips running at 2 watts. They claim to have a mix of 90 and 60 degree optics. This will be replacing my ATI sunpower 6x54watt unit that I'm tired of buying new bulbs for. I'll be sure to update the thread with my impressions.

I'm not positive if the lighting will be brighter or more dull than my ATI. You think I should hang it higher just in case and work my way down slowly?

[Snausy]

link?

Well after spending the night last night looking at DIY threads I think it'd be much easier and not much more expensive to go this route. I'm not an electrician and after buying all the equipment for the DIY the "black box" route seems the easy win. Maybe I'll go DIY eventually just because it'd be a fun project but for now this is it. I hate that I need 4 because that's 4 times the possible trouble. Warranty needed.

Now I wonder if there is a concensus on which are the best boxes...especially for my 31" deep tank. 3w crees that actually run 3 watt maybe? There seems to be about five favs to choose from in this thread. A US dealer with a warranty would be nice.

I like the seller rating of http://www.ebay.com/itm/150726029374...#ht_5696wt_984 but 120 degree optics for such a deep tank might not be optimal.

Can you guys that have them help me come to a decision so I can just get this done and over with please! haha

4 boxes at 165.00 is just about the same as I paid for my 4' T5 fixture. Lighting a 300 gallon with LED for less than 700 seems like it's finally worth it.

I think they make stunner-strips or something like it with reds and actinics if we want to enhance the color later. Heck I have a huge amount of space up there to put strips. Bang for buck these boxes are looking good to me. New kids in the family have a way of changing where your money goes eh. Daddy doesn't get the good stuff anymore.

[jrp1588]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/160736616961...84.m1497.l2649

In the specs it states the "view angle" at 60/90 degrees. I'm guessing this refers to the optics, I can't imagine what else it would be.

[BigCountry74]

Originally Posted by jrp1588

You think I should hang it higher just in case and work my way down slowly?

Yes.

You can mount these lights on simple adjustable shelving you can buy at Home Depot or Lowes. That makes it easier to raise/lower the lights.

You can check out my build thread if you like.

[jrp1588]

Shelving would be an awesome idea if the tank didn't have a window behind it. I wish I could have sound a better place for it. haha

[Boxfish]

Hey little off topic anyone know where I can buy one of those light hanging wire kits that come with all these lights?

[convict3]

I got my 120 watt ebayy led
fixture today . All i can say is its really bright.

[Snausy]

Originally Posted by jrp1588

http://www.ebay.com/itm/160736616961...84.m1497.l2649

In the specs it states the "view angle" at 60/90 degrees. I'm guessing this refers to the optics, I can't imagine what else it would be.

Ok whoa that has a 3 year warranty...got my attention. Epistar though? I know nothing of epistar. Why can't they use Cree? bah

[Boxfish]

Originally Posted by Snausy

I know nothing of epistar. Why can't they use Cree? bah

They can make them with Cree's if your dealing with them direct from China but its about an 80 dollar mark up or more.

[jrp1588]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistar

Sounds like a pretty legit maker or LED's to me. The LED light offered at reeffiltration .com use these LED's.

Not sure if linking to another forum is allowed, but this is very pertinent to the discussion.
http://www.*********.com/forums/larg...ed-reef-3.html
This is the reeffiltration unit that uses the epistar LED's in action. It looks like the very same unit I purchased on ebay for way cheaper

http://www.*********.com/forums/reef...tion-leds.html
this shows the growth in his tank with the lights

[BigCountry74]

Cree/Bridgelux/Epistar are your big 3. They are all good chips.

and it all depends on who you talk to as to which one is best. My buddy runs his own commercial lighting company and he competes against Cree, so of course he has nasty opinions against them....lol

[rixhater]

Not to sure who made mine but i do know they are cheap LED's i got off Ebay for around $150/ea from a place called sun valley out of california. I was very skeptical at first but I had a good friend swear by them. My friend has several tanks running halides and swapped them all out for these LED's. I figured what the hell if he did that and has had them for a while and loves them then it couldn't hurt for me and my one tank so i gave them a shot and to my surprise i actually really like them. I am no light expert and do not know the par or any of the detailed specs. I only know that they are the 3 watt LED's running at 2 watts for a total of 120watts per fixture. i have a 4ft 90gallon tank and it lights it up great. I am working my way further and further into SPS but don't have too much of it now. So far it seems like corals that like it are zoo's, frogspawn, colt, red cap monti, star polyps, candy coral, green/red chalice, i just added a birds nest, chili pepper monti, sunset monti, unknown green/blue acro and they all seem to be doing well. The only corals that seemed bothered were the mushrooms i had to move them to the bottom and a little under a ledge. Not sure if this helped you any since most of the spa are new other then the red cap monti. Heres a few pics:




my corals are opening up a lot better with these LED's then they were with my previous 4x54 T5HO.

[rixhater]

htt

I added a few more pics just to try and let you see how some of the different colors look. i suck with a camera so that doesn't help. they look a lot better in person then in the pics. i tried with flash and without to try and show the colors better. the zoo'z i obviously used the flash. It would probably help a little more if i knew how to use this fancy camera, lol. hope this helped.

[lil_man72]

i think i'm going to give these lights a try.
there's several local guys on saltcity running these and love them.
most of them got there's from ebay seller smartlaptopparts
the black boxes have 30 blues and 25 whites, the white box the opposite.
i've seen a few in person and they look great. i don't know much about par and spectrum but the tanks they were on looked great and they have been running them for several months.