Lighting for my 85g LED build

[gibs]

Hey guys I have decided my next part of my build I want to tackle is my DIY ledlighting. This is for 2 reasons

1. It seems to be the one that needs the most planning and thought and there is so much out there information wise that after a entire afternoon of researching I am still a little bit confused.

2. This seems to be the one part where I will have to order everything online and get it ordered and will take a chunk of time getting the fans/heatsinks/soldering/cover all put together in my canopy.

Here is what I have so far.

My tank is 36" Long 25" tall and 18" wide. From what I can determine I am wanting 36-40 LEDs mostly white and royal blue with a 1w to 1.5-2 RB ratio.

I am going to go with Cree leds as I have found numerous sources stating these are the best.

Lights will approximately be 6"-8" above the water.

Questions:

1. I have several people say they are using reds, violets, oranges, etc. and getting dramatic differences in the color pop even though we know that most corals live to deep in the ocean to see these colors in nature. No data seems to exist to say that this will anyway effect coral growth bad or good but many people say the viewing difference is better and some not. What is your guys experience/advice on this?

2. Many sources state to intermix some cool whites with the normal whites but I have no idea what ratio to intermingle them? Any thoughts advice would be awesome.

3. Some people say that the Royal blues are to harsh for moonlights and to use the standard blues? Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated.

4. I know I need drivers and will be going with the dimmable type but what experiences have to guys at sites to buy the cree lights and dimmers?

5. What am I not thinking of?

Thanks guys for taking a look at this for me I appreciate it! I will be traveling after tomorrow afternoon till Thursday or Friday but will be keeping an eye on it as I can.

For got to add I have thought really hard about the corals I want to keep and talked alot about it with my daughter tonight and looking at different stuff here is a small wish list of what we plan for the tank and just as a FYI this will be all over a year or more I plan on stocking this tank slowly.

1. Fuzzy dwarf lion

2. red sea star (Fromia sp.)(or something similar but you get the idea)

3. 2 sponges a red and a blue sponge tree. (I have heard that blue sponge trees are available but no real luck finding one online for sale so maybe a similar color but different blue)

4. Mostly softies like devil hand leathers, finger leathers, toadstools etc. Mostly moderate light moderate flow type species.

5. Anemone like a bubble tip or condy that both require moderate lighting to little bit heavier lighting will be definitely making a spot up for them to be closer to the lighting as I think this will be the one possibly high light requirement for my tank.

[gibs]

Ok this is a rough first sketch I currently have 48 LEDs in this which I think is a little much but I am using the dimensions of the 6" by 20" heatsink from rapid led. I am think of cutting out a few whites and adding a few more RB's and a few ultraviolets which I have none of right now.

Let me know what you guys think.

[gibs]

Some other thoughts I am thinking of cause the kids are asleep and I can do that at the moment LOL.

I know 48 is a bit much for my tank so I am thinking of going 3 rows instead of 4. This will give me 36 instead of 48 I have read on several sites that this should be plenty for my tank but I like the idea of being able to add more later if I wish so maybe I should just cut some out of the current design?

The space in the middle is because my tank has a brace across the middle.

If i center this in the middle of the canopy. I will still have 8" on each side I think that without using lenses I will get a plenty of light to the entire tank but not 100% sure of this.

Most sites and stuff I have read say have more blues than whites but I am having a problem trying to layout extras in a symmetrical design....Any thoughts?

[KevinB]

If you have a center brace, you might want to stack some extra light above it so you don't have a big dark spot in the middle...that's what I did, and I actually wish I had a little bit more light above my brace.

I think you're undervaluing the cool whites, and overvaluing the Blues. If it were me, I would lean more towards a mix of more Royal blue and less regular blue, and more cool white and less neutral white. The cool white is not all the blue looking, but the neutral white is kind of a warm color.

I would sacrifice a few normal blues and add a couple of Violet, or Red-Orange.

Remember that if you have too many blues, your overall brightness might not be what you want. My light is powerful enough to grow SPS, but I do wish it was a little brighter, and I even have a higher white to blue ratio than you do. But then again I like a fairly bright tank.

Also, remember that with drivers, you can only run the driver at the max output suitable for your weakest LED. So if your whites can handle 1500mA and your blues can take 1000mA and you have them on the same driver, guess what amperage your whites have to run? Yep, 1000mA.

Try to separate your colors to different drivers as much as possible, so you can maximize the output of each LED type.

[KevinB]

Also, regarding night time illumination...IMHO your tank should be fairly dark. I have 4 cheap radioshack LEDs over my 75g, and I still have to turn them so that they don't shine directly into the tank. A little goes a loooong way for night lights. In my setup, using mean well drivers, my lights stay on until they get to 12%, then off. So they do dim down a long way, but then abruptly turn off. There is no low light output setting with my Cree/Meanwell setup.

Have you thought about a controller? I use a fairly inexpensive one that fades 4 independent channels up or down.

[gibs]

If you have a center brace, you might want to stack some extra light above it so you don't have a big dark spot in the middle...that's what I did, and I actually wish I had a little bit more light above my brace.

I think you're undervaluing the cool whites, and overvaluing the Blues. If it were me, I would lean more towards a mix of more Royal blue and less regular blue, and more cool white and less neutral white. The cool white is not all the blue looking, but the neutral white is kind of a warm color.

I would sacrifice a few normal blues and add a couple of Violet, or Red-Orange.

Remember that if you have too many blues, your overall brightness might not be what you want. My light is powerful enough to grow SPS, but I do wish it was a little brighter, and I even have a higher white to blue ratio than you do. But then again I like a fairly bright tank.

Also, remember that with drivers, you can only run the driver at the max output suitable for your weakest LED. So if your whites can handle 1500mA and your blues can take 1000mA and you have them on the same driver, guess what amperage your whites have to run? Yep, 1000mA.

Try to separate your colors to different drivers as much as possible, so you can maximize the output of each LED type.

Ok so your saying leave all the warm lights and all the royalblues and trade out some neutral whites with some cool whites and add some red-orange and ultraviolet for some of the blues? I keep reading that red doesn't add much to the look or light spectrum compared to regular whites and looking at the spectral graphs for warm white versus the red and red orange it doesn't look like I am gaining much? My idea of leaving a space for the brace in the middle is to not make a bunch of big shadows. I may end up stacking a bunch of lights on it in the end but we will see.

Also, regarding night time illumination...IMHO your tank should be fairly dark. I have 4 cheap radioshack LEDs over my 75g, and I still have to turn them so that they don't shine directly into the tank. A little goes a loooong way for night lights. In my setup, using mean well drivers, my lights stay on until they get to 12%, then off. So they do dim down a long way, but then abruptly turn off. There is no low light output setting with my Cree/Meanwell setup.

Have you thought about a controller? I use a fairly inexpensive one that fades 4 independent channels up or down.

I am planning on using 4

Mean Well ELN-60-48D

Still haven't completely made my mind up on these but they seem the most popular and a very good product from everything I can see.

Or are you talking about a tank controller? I am using the apex neptune at the moment.

[KevinB]

I'm a big proponent of simulating the natural environment. In nature, coral gets *some* light in the red spectrum as well, even if it's not used as much as the blue for photosynthesis, it's still there. I've also read the light in the red spectrum makes red corals pop more during the daylight light settings. Me, I'd rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.

Anyway there are many schools of thought on reds, and my opinion is just one of many. Independent research towards your own goal is warranted.

In my own tank, I'm not very impressed with the warm whites...to me, the cool whites are brighter. Too many warm whites and things will start looking yellow. Too many cool whites...not really an issue, most people prefer a cooler look in a reef tank, myself included. If I had to do mine over again, I would have gone with more of a ratio like this one:

2 CW

1 RB

.5 Blue

.25 UV

.25 Red

Then I would drive them as such: 1-2 driver all whites, 1 driver all blues, one driver everything else.

Remember that when you look at those graphs, even a little bit of difference in terms of color can actually be a large difference in terms of amplitude, In other words, yes...warm white covers a lot of the Red orange spectrum, but at a very low amplitude. I opted to go with a spike in Red, Red orange, and Cyan, in addition to having both warm and neutral whites. My sacrifice was overall intensity and probably should have used more cool whites for a brighter effect...but I'm glad I have the coverage that I do. My approach is just one of many though.

The controller I was referring to was a lighting controller only. I use the one here:

http://www.boostled.com/products/typhon-led-controller-kit

You can simulate sunrise/daytime/sunset. I have my reds, wartm whites and violets fade on in the morning, all on in the afternoon, in the evening everything but the blues fade out for an actinic effect.

Is your brace glass? If so, you would want more lights over it to counteract the dimness of going through the glass

[gibs]

Hmm you do bring up some good points and I don't want to discount them, but I did a lot of reading of Josh Sanjays and the red and oranges just don't seem to make a difference from a point where you can measure it. Now some people say they see great pop and some say not. Of course this is the huge issue with LED's right now what one person does on one tank very rarely and can be 100% replicated for another that is just slightly different dimensions or other factors. So yes i am still debating whether to add some more reds or oranges but haven't fully decided. The tank brace is 2" wide and black plastic and my concern with it is mainly casting a large shadow on it.

[KevinB]

Ah ok, that makes sense about the center brace. Maybe if you don't run optics on the LEDs that are near it, the light will disperse more...

[+olaggie01]

Regardless of what can be measured, I really do think that a 2 spectrum LED system (white/blue) lacks a lot of other required colors that MH or T5 provide. I was never (and I'm not alone) able to achieve great colors using my AI Sols and even some LPS shifted colors due to the lack of spectrum. My 2 cents.

My new frag tank fixture has a larger array of LEDs, UV, green, purple, red, etc. I'm anxious to get it up and running.

[DerrickH]

Yeah, Im finding that coloration has been shifted in my tank as well with just blues and whites. Some for the better, some not so much. Either way, who wants to light up a bunch of dino????LOL

[gibs]

Ok here is my second draft. I added more RB's and got rid of the neutral whites. I kept the warm whites cause some research I did said if you are adding different colors the warms will help blend everything and as long as you have enough blues you should avoid the yellowing effect. So I added some reds red-oranges greens and violets. Let me know what you think. Not really digging the placements at the moment so if anyone has any better ideas of spreading out the colors let me know.

[KevinB]

If you are using green, or cyan, you'll want to put it next to a red, and a blue if you can. These three colors make white, so the net effect to the eye is white, but you are still hitting the spectrums you are desiring.

I personally haven't seen or heard much benefit from using the cyans, so I'd consider them optional. Maybe someone else can weigh in on that.

I would try to mix the blues into the middle a little bit too, to avoid any kind of color temperature banding. It might end up looking too warm in the middle of the tank.

[gibs]

Yeah I am having a problem in mind coming up with a good way to spread it all out I will play with it some more and see what I can come up with. Really wanting to get these ordered soon cause I got some time the end of this week to start working on it!

[gibs]

Hmmmmmm

[KevinB]

That looms like a decent layout to me

[gibs]

Yeah I am going to go with that but ordering some extras of each and a smaller heatsink for the fuge and I am just going to play around with it some and see. I got so many different opinions I am just going to have to try some different stuff and see what happens.