LED Lights

[michael grady]

As I'm setting up my 110 reef, I've been looking at lighting. My setup (used) came with 2 MH lights. I thought I'd look into LED lighting and loked at the Reef2reef DIY kits. They were VERY helpful, however, I had quite a bit of sticker shock - over 1500 bucks to light this tank!

Thoughts??

 

[john26]

Checkout Ecoxotic LED lights and you may as well checkout Rapid LED too.

 

[falos]

ecorays are good down to 24'' you cant adjust w/b though color is betwene 18~20k

 

[mcphock]

Unless you really really really DYI LED lighting, it's an expensive option. Bank on the fact of low-to-no bulb replacement and much lower power and cooling requirements.

And, in general, good reef tank lighting expensive!

 

[crewdawg1981]

Na... not expensive if you find a good deal. And there are deals to be found.

I've been looking into some eshinesystem units after seeing purpleGORILLA's tank. Great color and tons of growth... ~$240 each gets you a 300w unit that has 100 3W Bridgelux LEDs. Of course... you have to pay for shipping from China, but....

I hope to be ordering from em in a few months.... a few of us could jump in together and save on shipping? It was just a touch over $200 when I talked to the rep last night, but additional units would spread the cost. I asked about price breaks, but its only a couple of dollars if you get 10-49 units ordered.

 

[malawian]

regardless it will be expensive getting out of the barn, however you WILL save money on power and bulbs especially considering you wont have to replace LEDs for 10-15 years.

DIY isnt a bad idea however. take a look at LEDgroupbuy.com. you can save ALOT of money on the LEDs themselves. heatsink USA makes some good sinks of all sizes (multiple smaller sinks are a better idea than one huge one). meanwell or thomas research products makes some good drivers (im a big fan of TRPs).

ecoxotics are good products however the LEDs themselves have some issues, namely with the optics. they dont have very good water penetration and you will need probably 3-5 over a given area to have the kind of intensity you were used to with your halides. even then, i still wouldnt put it over a tank that deep. google ecoxotic panorama PAR readings to see some results to that end.

there are other good LED options but i wouldnt go with ecoxotics (theyre better for smaller tanks). personally I would go with 40 degree or maybe 60 degree optics on a set of cree xpe and xpg LEDs backed by TRP drivers.

ive done alot of research on LEDs (built my own) so let me know if you have questions. I can probably track down some similar builds.

 

[lilrobb]

Correct me, but the e.shine units use one cord per fixture, right?
Making it uncontrollable with any controller, no?

 

[crewdawg1981]

Not sure Robb... the pics say you're right. You'd definitely lose out on any dimming ability (not dimmable... so you lose that, but ... its not like you can dim MH bulbs), and you wouldnt be able to have just blues on or just whites. It'd end up being controlled like regular MH bulbs.

I guess what sold me was Trinh's tank... with these lights... its gorgeous.

 

[john26]

Very well said, did not really look at the depth of the tank.

Malawian;685637 wrote: regardless it will be expensive getting out of the barn, however you WILL save money on power and bulbs especially considering you wont have to replace LEDs for 10-15 years.

DIY isnt a bad idea however. take a look at LEDgroupbuy.com. you can save ALOT of money on the LEDs themselves. heatsink USA makes some good sinks of all sizes (multiple smaller sinks are a better idea than one huge one). meanwell or thomas research products makes some good drivers (im a big fan of TRPs).

ecoxotics are good products however the LEDs themselves have some issues, namely with the optics. they dont have very good water penetration and you will need probably 3-5 over a given area to have the kind of intensity you were used to with your halides. even then, i still wouldnt put it over a tank that deep. google ecoxotic panorama PAR readings to see some results to that end.

there are other good LED options but i wouldnt go with ecoxotics (theyre better for smaller tanks). personally I would go with 40 degree or maybe 60 degree optics on a set of cree xpe and xpg LEDs backed by TRP drivers.

ive done alot of research on LEDs (built my own) so let me know if you have questions. I can probably track down some similar builds.

 

[malawian]

you know ive tried to find that out but I cant get a definite answer. each unit has its own set of dimmers but I dont know if those dimmers can be controlled with an external unit.

another good reason to DIY

Edit: sry i cant find how to edit a post...that response was about the eshine unit.

they definitely have dimmers but given that they dont say they CAN be controlled by a PWM or 10v I think its PROBABLY safe to assume they cant be externally controlled.

dimmers are very important! dont assume your LEDs are just ok...i turn my white channel on my LEDs down to about 30% and if its all the way up even SPS will fry. dimmers are a must have! (but the eshine units do have them, dont worry)

 

[crew]

Build it yourself.