LED Lighting Question

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Wiggles92

Dovii
MFK Member
Apr 25, 2009
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I'm looking for suggestions as to how many 3 watt LEDs I might need in order to keep pretty much any coral that I want (within reason) in a nano reef; I'm currently thinking of using a standard 10 gallon aquarium, but I might go with something a bit taller such as a 15 gallon column.

I planned on building the fixture from scratch in order to avoid the high cost of commercially available fixtures that provide the same level of performance. I also know that I need to be careful about balancing the royal blue LEDs and cool white LEDs (saw something like 3:1 blue-to-white ratio), but that's about it for my knowledge on making an LED fixture. Any ideas?
 
Easier said then done, for multiple reasons, one most LEDs that are suitable for this purpose require printed circet boards and special machines to solder, as well as they need correct lenses to get the right focus for a good output. That said if you can do it, go for it, the Aqua Illumination SOL module has 16 whites and 8 blues, and is one of the better systems I've seen, as for LEDs I recomend cree XP-E s or better.
 
Kevin8888 said:
Easier said then done, for multiple reasons, one most LEDs that are suitable for this purpose require printed circet boards and special machines to solder, as well as they need correct lenses to get the right focus for a good output. That said if you can do it, go for it, the Aqua Illumination SOL module has 16 whites and 8 blues, and is one of the better systems I've seen, as for LEDs I recomend cree XP-E s or better.
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I had planned on basing it on the AI Sol and the AI Nano, and I have been looking at these LEDs (ReefLEDLights.com) which seem pretty good and are made by Cree (XP-E and XP-G). That website also has the lenses and other building supplies (including solderless LED connectors). I figure that I'll save at least $100 over buying one of the AI Nanos or AI Sols if I build my own.
 
Ahhhh yes, the pre-mounted ones, forgot about those (haven't looking into DIYing them in a wile). It's a good idea, my only concern is the optics wouldn't be ideal, for my needs, but for the average tank it's probably doable, just make sure you have a good heatsink, and a fan or two to make sure there is enough cooling or their lifespan is drastically decreased and their output is changed.
 
Kevin8888 said:
Ahhhh yes, the pre-mounted ones, forgot about those (haven't looking into DIYing them in a wile). It's a good idea, my only concern is the optics wouldn't be ideal, for my needs, but for the average tank it's probably doable, just make sure you have a good heatsink, and a fan or two to make sure there is enough cooling or their lifespan is drastically decreased and their output is changed.
Click to expand...

They have all that stuff, too; all that's needed is assembly and fine tuning. The optics don't look terrible; they're designed specifically for the Cree LEDs, so I would imagine that they would work well. I planned on mounting an extra fan or two on the heat sink just to be safe, too.
 
If you have a few extra bucks I would go with the Cree XM-L for the whites as they are actually the highest output LEDs Cree currently offers, (though they don't have any blues just whites in that line).
 
Kevin8888 said:
If you have a few extra bucks I would go with the Cree XM-L for the whites as they are actually the highest output LEDs Cree currently offers, (though they don't have any blues just whites in that line).
Click to expand...

It is only for a nano, so a couple extra dollars to get the best lights seems like a good idea to me; I'll just have to balance them accordingly with the blue LEDs. I figure that I'll get a red LED or two, too, for balancing out the lighting even further.
 
Actually I was looking at hero-led.com and they had a 100 watt driver and Complimentary white bulbs. If you did that got a good heat sink and supplemented with like 3 blue rails and one of each red and green that light make a good spot for a nano. Than you won't have to limit yourself on your photosynthetic animals. I think the grand total in wattage at least would go up to 250 ish so you could run at half power, get amazing shimmer, and have happy clams. Everyone knows happyclams make a happy aquarist lol.
 
I could swear fleshy or nonstophoops where discussing an led build. The bad thing about this lighting is the uncharted territory. That and the nonuniforminarianism of our illustrious hobby. What works for one might crash another. I really want to incorporate LEDs into my 75 gallon build (which should be up in the next couple of weeks.) but I don't want to have a million 3 wattbulbs that will punch the first 5" with par and starve the rest. That's why I brought up the high wattage option because that will punch and the others can supplement spectrum. In theory at least...
 
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