BAMF_Aquatics

i never heard from your friend... but in all honesty i wouldn't use lowe's leds for growing anything/ they are basic illumination not meant to grow anything. sure you could get something to grow moderately but you need much higher intensity for corals. if those are putting out 75 par through a foot of water i'd honestly be impressed.

i've got a cnc on reserve for just this type of thing. do you have drawings i can reference for a 3d model to pass along?

thanks Ian, if you would pm a budget you'd like to maintain and weather, the plants well need med or higher light requirements, and you're install requirements, i.e. canopy, or suspended. and I'll start designing for you.

looks great!

led seal

if you use it sure to polish the ends with some super low micron paper, oh yeah!

40 breeder

how much light can that transmit? umol/s2? its interesting for sure

i figured par for par would be a good start. lol but you're right for plants the sun is wayy better. well unless you can afford plasma... thats always a good thing.

here is my main DT, i use this tank for all my R&D shown is

1500mA of white light, 6 cw xpg/6 nw xpg

1050mA of rb, 450nm 12 xpg soon to be xte

700mA tv 5x

700mA osram 660 hyper red 2x

700mA Phillips cyan 2x

700mA cree 470nm blue xpg 2x

350mA rb moonlights (always on)

spacing is even at 1.5" between leds left to right, 3 rows of leds front to back

1 4" fan at max

die temp is 83°C

no light defuser

max output without optics is 274 par at 12" over water, 16" deep tank 28" overall from bottom of the tank. par at surface is 700, just under the fixture is over 2000PAR

i was filming an hd video and my battery died so i'll record one tonight with a max on, white fade out, blue fade out, white fade up, blue fade up, spectral enhancement leds off then another blue fade out and white fade out to all off.

oh yes i've had an 18" rbta nose dive a tank before it was not fun. i woke up and it pretty much killed EVERYTHING except the fish. i don't know how they made it honestly.

back to subject thought, zoas ime are typically shorter stocked blunt tentacles, palys usually are taller more frilly tentacles. then there's the Parazoanthus gracilis which can be shallow to DEEP water zoas some reports have them at depths of up to 4-5000 ft some attached to gorgonians.

that is one heck of a sweet tank! i don't know why but i want to say congrats!

• and comparing 400 watts of light to a 90 watts of 1 watt leds isn't a good base. try some 3 watt 660 nm reds and a few 420s, 450, 470 for low end light i'd say 150-200 watts or so of leds would be comparable.
  

ok thanks.

algae like plants will grow well under heavy reds and in 410-465 nm light. the key there is husbandry.

that's good I'm glad you got the Cree you'll be much happier with the output. with that many colors is tighten the clusters a good deal. it will lead to the appearance of a single point light source, killing the disco effect

do you mind my asking how far apart the leds are from each other? I've noticed when you start getting near 2 inches of separation the effect becomes more pronounced.

in your light it seems to have helped a good deal

over all i think you're on the right track, but of its a $30 difference up front for the best leds you can get vs. replacing them all if you're unsatisfied is really more that a $30 diff. i can't stress to people enough that even though you may save some money right now its really in your own best interest to get CREE leds for your primary lights they are not only brighter but have a better qc process. the binning is much more accurate, so achieveing a desired look is easily done when you know your colors before you build it.

i make custom light fixtures for folks here in houston and have had great success putting down some serious light in beautiful spectrums. i honestly think your best bet on a 75 is going to be using xml whites if you run them up to 2.3A (meanwell 90-27 drivers) they can still be dialed back to fit your needs but can also produce tons more light for alot less money. on a 75 you'd only need 8 with no optics, from there just cluster 2-3 xt-e per white they can be pushed to just over 1A when actively cooled. and that buys you less leds to need to run, and alows more space on your heatsink for adding reds and cyans (which should be very closely placed this will avoid any blending issues.) you'd only need a pair of r/c for evey 18x18"

if you add true violets don't expect a drastic change when the other lights are on as they are approching the limits of our visable spectrum. but they will add tons of par and a nice actinic kick. i know some companies that make violets have them made with 60deg built in optics which in your case works out well to help those penetrate the water.also when running violets try not to push them over 600mA they are designed to run at or below 80°C where crees run best at 85° so thats something to watch out for. also be sure to add about .5-1 tv per rb so there is enough of them there to make a difference. (my personal tank runs .5 tv per rb)

i like your heatsink set up just be sure to add a few fans on top to help pull heat away as you don't have a lot of mass to hold the temps you need to actively cool the fins to mantain stability.

good luch with your build. btw what modeling program are you using? it looks great.

thanks, and yes i agree i make it a point to call "uv" led true violet as thats what they are. you'll need aprox 3-4 ocean whites mer 24x24 area.

but you really don't need a diffuser unless your really close to the waters surface and at that point it won't do much to help. really though unless your running deeper than 20 inches you don't even need optics to aim the light down. they come stock with a 110-120° optic from the factory. i also wanted to add for your primary colors always use cree leds the best you can afford, smaller build xpg whites, bigger builds xml's royals should always be xt-e, i prefer the quality of light from osram vs the chinese knock offs as the phillips cyan. if you want to use green cree makes a good version thats also very efficent. remember when going leds just bite the bullet and spend your money once. the last thing you want is to pay for 2 lights only to use one.

also buy LED Seal great stuff once you are "finished" with your light i use the " " because i'm never finished there is always something i'm tweaking on my lights so i have the best possible solutions for all the senarios that come up with custom lighting tanks.

and remember if this becomes too much for you to handle i'm just a phone call away. i 3d model all lights, optical output and the tank it will sit over along with finding the perfect installed height for your light to find the perfect light spread so everything is illuminated properly.

cw:rb isn't really ideal unless you're going to be using red and cyan.. having said that if you do it. do everything all at once do not waste your time and effort to do this in two steps.

best bet is 2:1:1 thats rb:cw:nw for accents add .5-1 tv per rb

1 660nm osram hyper red & 1 phillips cyan per 18x18 area... these must be touching or very very close together. or you will end up with jacked up color shading. i repeat do not ever run red and cyan seperated, ever.

if you plan on useing standard blue (470nm) use them very sparingly. 1 for a 18"x18" area max. if you use more expect to have a windex look to your tank.

rapid led has a very good selection of leds to use all the best binning possible always.

use clusters as much as possible this will help blend your colors in above the water (thats where you want the blending to occur)

verify your driving current is set to its minimum prior to turning on your newly built system

tune your max driver slowly and while holding a multimeter to bypass 1 led this must be done to ensure you don't blow, melt, or otherwise trash your new (read expensive) lights

always no matter what anyone tells you use a fan kit i don't care how cold you keep your home trust me use a fan always oversize it, so you can run it slower and still keep the same cfm that a smaller fan set at full speed (read loud) will do.

when setting up which leds will be on a dimmer channel i personally set them so the whites, reds, cyans are on 1 channel. then use a different channel for your rb and tv. finally use a third channel for standard blue. you will want it independantly controllable for the reason i stated above. if you want full control you can put the red/cyan leds on the 4th channel but you really shouldn't need it.unless you know what your doing. it can be alot harder to calibrate but deffinately doable.

i like the typhoon controller from boost and the dim 4 controller from led group buy. both are good the differences are that the boost controller is pwn based (meanwell P code) and the dim 4 is 0-10v based (meanwell d code) also provide the dim4 with the proper power supply and it will light 3 leds per channel upto 500ma max with out needing extra drivers.

if you want sunrise/set features and you want to play with what i call a true sunrise you the 4 channels for the colors combos i recommended above. and set your lights to turn on your r/c channel to come on for a 30 min fade, then set your blues to come in over a 1.5 hours fade, then set your whites and rb channels to work a 4-5hour fade. your over all time with lights on should be about 11 hours with this set up. it seems excessive but try it and you'll love the results, it will give you similar effects as a natural sunrise where the first light to break the night is a reddish to orange then eventually a full sun (high noon) then back down through out the day. please find someone with a par meter if you plan on trying this so you can set your peak intensities at a reasonable rate as your will be running a LONG light cycle. it is up to you to determine what is too bright for your tank as i can't go over and set it up for you.

i hope this all helps please feel free to pick my brains if i left anything out.

all the best,

Gabe

let me get home and I'll drop a knowledge bomb.

dude that is awesome!

not bad. just if you get stuck by one (trust me it happens... alot.) use duct tape

a couple of yanks and they spines come right out. if its irritated a good soaking in vinegar stops any irritation

I've got a few colonies that I can take some nice frags of of if you're interested

Thanks guys, glad to be a part of ARC! I also specialize in custom led lighting designed for your set up and make it expandable if need be. Feel free to check out my recent work on facebook.

I am in Clear Lake, currently working out of my house until I can get my store set up. Like Mike said, I can special order most anything.