led color combo

gmoney243 · Mar 5, 2012

I'm about to do a diy led on a 180 I'm goin with 140-160 3w leds my question is what color choices would be best for all range color pop so many different colors now. I'm going with Royal Blues but what combo of whites to use 10k 6500 and 4500 are my options for whites and what others like 420nm violet or 398nm UV or 660nm red and how many or what % should be the red/ uv colors. Ill be goin with 2rb/1w ratio thx.

ingtar_shinowa · Mar 5, 2012

throw in a few violet and reds IMO

harley · Mar 5, 2012

id add 10-15% of the current led volume as a mix of uv and violet, and about 10% red and cyan, then do a 2 to 1 ratio of rb's to blues and the same with whites to nw's mostly 10k to 6k to avoid algae growth! That should give a good spectrum!

rkseaslug · Mar 6, 2012

I am no expert,but experiment a lot. I like 2 to 1 miso royal blue and blue to white. I like more royal blue than blue. I like 10 k white with a few 6500k mixed in. The 10k brings out colors like crazy. A few violets are ok too. Don't like tr reds, they over power everything. Uv is very dim, not sure what benefit they are. My latest thing is one t5 strip with ati purple plus, made big diff. With sps colors. I don't know why but some zoas seem to grow long under led, I added the t5 to seem it they will get short again. Hope that helps.

CJO · Mar 6, 2012

harley said:
id do 10-15% of the led volume as a mix of uv and violet, and about 10% red and cyan, then do a 2 to 1 ratio of rb's to blues and the same with whites mostly 10k to 6k to avoid algae growth! That should give a good spectrum!

Have you tried this yourself? That's a high percentage of UV, violet, red and cyan.

My personal thought is 2:1 royal blue to a mix of neutral whites and cool whites. You can throw in a couple of violet. The reds and cyans tend to overpower everything unless you have a very small number compared with the other colors. UV are very dim and don't add much.

CJ

gmoney243 · Mar 6, 2012

CJO said:
Have you tried this yourself? That's a high percentage of UV, violet, red and cyan.

My personal thought is 2:1 royal blue to a mix of neutral whites and cool whites. You can throw in a couple of violet. The reds and cyans tend to overpower everything unless you have a very small number compared with the other colors. UV are very dim and don't add much.

CJ

yea i was thinking that sounded like a lot as well .. i was thinking just doing 2:1 RB/CW(10k) this is what my current fixture has on my current tank and i like it but could use some more red and orange pop so i was thinking of putting maybe 10reds on a dimmable driver spread out about every 1' with no optics should this help some more red and orange pop?

harley · Mar 6, 2012

That's what rapidled suggests and what i'm on my way too. Currently I have 24 cw's, 18 rb's, 10 blues, 12 uv's! I will be adding 4 reds and 8 cyan's to my 55 pretty soon. Sure the uv's add little in the way of aesthetics but almost everyone i know that adds them, has seen markable coral growth compared to without them. And I would def not do straight rb and cw. You can swap out any color you want, i'd def mix in some blues and nw's to round out the spectrum at least.

edited owrding in first post to say add 10-15% of existing volume.

NeveSSL · Mar 6, 2012

I'm curious, Mike... have you thought about buying a solution?

The reason I ask is because I did some very rudimentary calculations on doing DIY for a 180 vs buying 3 AI SOLs and it was only around $100 difference. If you consider labor, its a lot more expensive.

I can understand people wanting more shades of different colors. In that respect, I'll DIY the extra colors I want and create "color strips", if you will, to add the other spectrums in for cheap.

Just a thought.

Brandon

harley · Mar 6, 2012

NeveSSL said:
I'm curious, Mike... have you thought about buying a solution?

The reason I ask is because I did some very rudimentary calculations on doing DIY for a 180 vs buying 3 AI SOLs and it was only around $100 difference. If you consider labor, its a lot more expensive.

I can understand people wanting more shades of different colors. In that respect, I'll DIY the extra colors I want and create "color strips", if you will, to add the other spectrums in for cheap.

Just a thought.

Brandon

Are you referring to me? I'm not mike from rapid, just a big fan after i received his lights.

NeveSSL · Mar 6, 2012

Sorry! The original poster's name is Mike.

Brandon

rkseaslug · Mar 7, 2012

I think 10 red is two much. Reds tend to wash out the royal blues. I have 3 in a tight cluster over my 100. Seems like enough for me, but I like the blue look.

CJO · Mar 7, 2012

gmoney243 said:
yea i was thinking that sounded like a lot as well .. i was thinking just doing 2:1 RB/CW(10k) this is what my current fixture has on my current tank and i like it but could use some more red and orange pop so i was thinking of putting maybe 10reds on a dimmable driver spread out about every 1' with no optics should this help some more red and orange pop?

I would definitely think about mixing up some neutral whites with the cool whites. I started out with just cool whites and really like the look now that I've swapped some out with neutral whites. You might get most of the red you need this way. However, adding a string of reds on a dimmer couldn't hurt (unless you put them too high!)

harley said:
That's what rapidled suggests and what i'm on my way too. Currently I have 24 cw's, 18 rb's, 10 blues, 12 uv's! I will be adding 4 reds and 8 cyan's to my 55 pretty soon. Sure the uv's add little in the way of aesthetics but almost everyone i know that adds them, has seen markable coral growth compared to without them. And I would def not do straight rb and cw. You can swap out any color you want, i'd def mix in some blues and nw's to round out the spectrum at least.

edited owrding in first post to say add 10-15% of existing volume.

RapidLED definitely has a lot more experience with this than I do. When you are speaking of UVs, are you talking real UV or the close to UV that is purplish. I would definitely stay away from the former since it is easy to damage the corals using this and they will be expending energy to block these rays that they could be using for growth. However, the latter one's do offer a little larger range of color, but you need a lot of them to really see anything.

CJ

reef_freak · Mar 7, 2012

I just did a build for my 180 and although I did not do as many total LEDs as you I did mix in some reds and cyans. The color came out quite lovely.

I did 3 heatsinks with 22 RB, 10 6500k, 2 red and 1 cyan in each heatsink.

I was a total newb with LEDs as far as soldering them etc. it I am so glad I went this route and thankful for the help of friends

gmoney243 · Mar 7, 2012

Cool thx all for advice and your experiences keep em comming

harley · Mar 8, 2012

CJO said:
I would definitely think about mixing up some neutral whites with the cool whites. I started out with just cool whites and really like the look now that I've swapped some out with neutral whites. You might get most of the red you need this way. However, adding a string of reds on a dimmer couldn't hurt (unless you put them too high!)

RapidLED definitely has a lot more experience with this than I do. When you are speaking of UVs, are you talking real UV or the close to UV that is purplish. I would definitely stay away from the former since it is easy to damage the corals using this and they will be expending energy to block these rays that they could be using for growth. However, the latter one's do offer a little larger range of color, but you need a lot of them to really see anything.

CJ

Yeah, the violets at 420nm i believe. I'm not a fan of the sub 400 actual uv's as I have a 7 year old that stares at the tank.