Reef Discussion

[mscott]

Probly questions that have been asked a thousand times but im still going to ask anyway lol.
1) where the hell do i get a heatsink big enough, im looking for one that 3ft long by at least 10" wide
2) where do i get the LEDs from and also how many of each colour for my tank (Will be a mixed reef with my pair of clowns)
3) How many leds can you hook up to the one driver??

I have red thru the LED build post and all thats done is confuse me more.
cheers

 

[MTG]

firstly what is your budget? and what is the size of the tank you want to light? what types of coral do you want to keep?

 

[mscott]

my tanks a 3x18x18, my budget would be most likely less than $150, possably closser to $100 if i can.
Well id realy like to keep a bit of everything

 

[Joshwaaaa]

You will be struggling on that budget even going the DIY route

 

[mscott]

yea, i know that, but thats all i can realy afford atm, but if i can coax money out of the missus, it could be upto 200

 

[Joshwaaaa]

for top of the range cree LED's and meanwell drivers look towards http://www.rapidled.com/servlet/StoreFront, but maybe more towards your budget you will be looking at http://www.aquastyleonline.com/ who supply bridgelux LED's which are far less effiecient and you will need a few more of to make it to cree brightness.

As for the amount of LED's it's really up to the corals you keep, SPS you will need a lot more then anything else

 

[mscott]

no worries mate, ill be sure to check them out,
cheers

 

[Josh M]

just to give you some perspective matt g made an led fixture for an ibox that had 7 3w crees running off one driver with heatsink and pc fan cost him about $120 from memory ? correct me if im wrong matt........ im sure you do it cheaper than that (expanded obviously) but i really doubt youll even get under the $200 mark and do it well.... besides that for about $230ish now you canget 120w led prefab lights that do the job quite well.. ihave one over my 2ft cube and its growing my lps really well.....

 

[MTG]

save up and spend that bit extra for the better quality crees,

yes the little kit i made ended up totaling that price with a little heatsink fan etc, it does get rather expensive tho!!. that ibox now has 5 leds over it as the 7 was to strong,
you could have probably done it cheaper but i used decent cree leds and a meanwell driver, with a decent quality heatsink. also had to make the frame for the fixture. it all adds up very quickly! realistically i would be allowing for 350-500$ personally,

 

[MTG]

on the cheap i think you could go this option http://www.aquastyleonline.com/products/36--LEDs--DIY-Dimmable-Kit.html, just need heatsink and a way to mount it all. although those leds wont give as good colour redinition and hit the correct spectrum as cree's

 

[mscott]

So realy it's cheeper for me to buy a pre made one, now that's interesting

 

[MagicJ]

Maybe, but the quality of the fittings may be questionable.

 

[NiCd]

the efficency of the cheap ones hold no gains over t5's as far as lumious efficency goes

 

[Joshwaaaa]

Maybe, but the quality of the fittings may be questionable.

this exactly,

plus the cheap generic 120W LED fixtures in my opinion wouldn't give a big enough spread with only one over a 3ft tank, the ends of your tank would be in darkness

 

[MTG]

I had a 150w cheap Chinese LEDs back when I first started this tank , I wouldn't touch another one personally

 

[Josh M]

The more I read into It the more I'm thinking about an upgrade..... While my whole tank is doing well I want it to flourish !

 

[mscott]

well as i dont even know what type of lights im useing im still going to keep my eyes open for some deals on LED's cheers

 

[MTG]

The more I read into It the more I'm thinking about an upgrade..... While my whole tank is doing well I want it to flourish !

what lights do you currently have?

 

[Josh M]

120w from eBay........ 2-1 blue-white

 

[MTG]

what size tank?