Budget led for 4ft 120g
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Ron Reefman
Lets Go Snorkeling!
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Tampa Bay Reef Keepers
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Take a look at OceanRevive and their Arctic S026. It's a great basic fixture (manual dimmers) and they have great prices too. They also sell the EverGrow OR-D120 for even less. I got the D120's direct from EG before OceanRevive was around. I tried one of the S026's and love them. Well worth the extra $14 over the OR-D120. This is their sponsor forum here on R2R:
https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/ocean-revive-led/135797-prices-so-low-we-cant-advertise-them.html
https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/ocean-revive-led/135797-prices-so-low-we-cant-advertise-them.html
joeyhatch11
Well-Known Member
ReefBreeders Photon 48" LEDs, $499. 47" long. Looking at one of these myself for my 48" tank. Reef Radiance's led light is nice and only $399 but only 37" long and would need to be raised a bit higher to cover 48" plus I believe the Reef Breeders Photon offers more leds.
reefbreeders
reefbreeders
Stringbean
Community Member
I really like the reefbreeder value fixtures and wouldn't think twice about them if they would accept 0-10v dimming. I found these leds that I like for the price and along with some dimable meanwell drives could be a nice light
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ReefLEDLights
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If you go DIY with solderless connectors the build is a lot less than a AI Hydra and upgradeable by simply adding more LEDs
I would recommend two 12" Heatsinks with 10 Cree Cool Whites, 12 Cree Royal Blue and 3-8 Cree Blue.
You do not have to settle for an Import that is cannot be repaired.
I have DIY Cree XT-E on my personal set up and could not be happier with the results as when you DIY your are in control and can choose thew best parts.
Bill
I would recommend two 12" Heatsinks with 10 Cree Cool Whites, 12 Cree Royal Blue and 3-8 Cree Blue.
You do not have to settle for an Import that is cannot be repaired.
I have DIY Cree XT-E on my personal set up and could not be happier with the results as when you DIY your are in control and can choose thew best parts.
Bill
Stringbean
Community Member
Awesome looking tank! What % are you running each channel on?
Stringbean
Community Member
Mabey this is a dum question but if I build a diy light is any colors other than a white and some sort of a blue necessary? The reason I ask is because I found some leds that I really like but they only come in 4k and 5k white and royal blue.
mcarroll
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I just made a post here (#15 in the "Lighting Suggestions" thread.) about Gu10 bulbs. Probably the most inexpensive and easiest DIY method. You should be able to easily build a GU10 fixture for your tank for under $300.
Check the links I posted in that thread for example bulbs. Holler if you have any questions about it!
-Matt
Check the links I posted in that thread for example bulbs. Holler if you have any questions about it!
-Matt
ReefLEDLights
Valuable Member
Lot of mis information and trends out there.
Based on our Research Based on the works of Sanjay Joshi and Dana Riddle we found this mix best for looks and growth
2:1 Ratio of Cree Royal Blue to Cool Whites. To this some Cree Blue make the recipe perfect.
The Cree Cool White for the most part is full spectrum less the red...corals do not receive red below 10 meters and even at 5 are next to nothing.
Fixtures using other than Cree LEDs may offer cool white with less than the desired grow spectrum.
PM sent with a faq page link that explains this more.
Bill
aslmx
Valuable Member
blues are 40 and whites are 30. I've had to order anew heater because my old one can't keep up when I removed the halides. I'm going to bump them up some more in a few days. LEDs are not as glaring bright as halides and I'm loving the colors I'm seeing. I don't have a par meter so I'm letting the corals tell me what they want.
ReefLEDLights
Valuable Member
LED should be judged like MH
Except there is a huge difference in current and intensity...
Seriously a LED fixture's intensity cannot be judged by watts....
There are numerous factors like the LED...The LED Optic... The driver/heatsink/fan combo...to only mention a few.
Current High End LEDs offer less coverage than a MH but for a tank less than 30" wide offer superior colour and efficiency....
Dont forget bins...
As reefers we grow corals.
The most successful coral growers used MH or MH w T5...
It would be nice if All Manufactures would rate their LED Fixture against the old school MH T5 setup...
Bill
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Stringbean
Community Member
I would like to know exactly how leds stack up against halides. Par-per-watt I guess you could say. Regardless if I loose a bit of coral growth I'm just not willing to put up with all the extra heat generated from halide lighting, not only in the tank but in the room! My dual 150w light turns it into a sana.
mcarroll
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Sure they can - at least to an extent!
Watts has always been a good place to start, but nothing more. I estimate successfully all the time starting with a simple watts/gallon calculation, for example. To be successful, additional factors have always had to be taken into account. There is just a slightly different set of factors with LEDs....and we're not all very familiar with all of them yet. Lenses are simple multipliers in terms of intensity (e.g. 30º lenses equal a 4x multiplier on 120º LEDs), so they really don't complicate things too much. They do reduce spread as well, so more emitters are required to maintain the same coverage. Just one example.
As far as comparing LED with halides or any other technology....it's hard to compare in an apples-to-apples manner. Even so, there are useful comparisons that can be made using a simple (and free or cheap) lux meter. Most people just never get a meter and do the experimenting to see.
PAR is interesting, but very expensive to measure (double if you want accuracy too) and not really any better for our purposes than measuring lux - which is dirt cheap or free to measure.
Transitioning established coral from another tech to LED can be dicey and lead to somewhat unpredictable results - it requires some finesse and a little luck. However, I don't see why a tank started on LED's would have any problem matching the growth and color of a halide or T5 system. Growth and color rely heavily on several factors...only one of which is light. And of all the contributions to coral well-being, light is probably what we have the easiest time providing....mostly, I think, because of how adaptable corals are to varying light conditions. This is what 400 million years of evolution will do for you!
-Matt
aslmx
Valuable Member
I try to go off hard evidence when I bought my leds. The one guy that really made my mind up was reefnjunkie. I hope he doesnt mind me using him as a reference but do a search on his old threads. He has a thread where he was selling corals that were grown under leds. Outstanding stuff. I do know that leds or lights in general are not even half of what you need to grow corals like his but Im really liking the fact that my electric bill is down about $50 and I dont have to buy bulbs this year. Now just need to keep everything stable and see what happens with the new lights. So far the only thing im having trouble with is like I said before, my temperature is a few degrees lower but the new heater is on the way. Another thing I love is I got to do away with all the fans in my canopy and evaporation was cut in half.
