DIY budget LED experiment

[Saratj1]

Check out www.heatsinkusa.com they seem to have pretty good stuff. I got that heatsink from someone who I think got it from them. I ordered a similar sized one from china and it's not as well made or heavy duty as that one is, but if your mounting to plastic, weight may be an issue. I believe my larger heatsink is around 25lbs, the slightly smaller one is probably 15-20lbs.

 

[qb6fire]

Mounting to plastic wont be bad ill have plenty of bracing for it

 

[Saratj1]

Here is a full tank shot with the LEDs on.

View attachment 94891

 

[qb6fire]

They look good

 

[Smitty]

What size tank is this?

 

[Saratj1]

It's a 47g column tank.

 

[qb6fire]

Sorry if thisbis a repeat? But how many leds is that?

 

[Saratj1]

It is 9 x 10w leds on the big fixture. I also made a smaller strip of 12 x 1w leds. The 12x1w are 10 royal blues and 2x uv leds. So all together there are 21 emitters with 102w. I think I might add 3 more 10w's down the road. I have the parts , well everything but the actual emitters themselves.

 

[Smitty]

Looks like 9x10w LEDs or about 90 watts total.

It looks like a tall tank as well. I guess the better question would have been what the dimensions of the tank where. I'm still learning the ins and outs of LEDs myself and have read that a rule of thumb (knowing that this is all speculation still) is (L x W) / 16 x 3 = total watts to use. The 16 can be subbed with 14 for deeper tanks.

That being said. I know someone with a 125 that has 24 10w LEDs and going by that formula he should have 324 watts over the tank... but he was going from compact florescents...

 

[Saratj1]

I believe the tank is 20x18x30.

 

[Saratj1]

I highly reccomend the 10w hybrid LEDs, the color they put out is great, they are economical and easy to work with. They are basically like 9 one watt leds on one chip, 3 rows of three, the top and bottom rows are blue with the middle row being white.


View attachment 94905

 

[Smitty]

Then you should have more than enough light. I remember you posting about getting optics, did you ever use any?

Are you going to have any coral on the sand bed?

How far over the top of the tank are the LEDs? I know the 10w ones without optics are anywhere between 120-160 degrees depending on the vendors that I've seen. Just over the water (6" or so) I think they would work fine without optics on a tank 20-24" deep. Going more than that and the PAR may drop off sharply at the bottom from what I've seen (like 50-90 PAR at sand bed on a 24" deep tank with 2" sand bed).

 

[Saratj1]

I thought about optics but didn't see anything that I really liked, and I just wasn't sure how to do it effectively. I have the light mounted about 1" over the rim of the tank so it's only about 3-4" from the surface of the water.

 

[Saratj1]

I have a couple corals on the sand bed, a couple zoa frags, a branching frogspawn and anemone is on the sand temporarily ( the anemone decided to move to the bottom of the frag and in a crack so I can't really get him off so I can mount the frogspawn how I want) and a maxima clam. I put the clam on the sand bed first he seemed to do good, I then moved him higher up kinda acclimating him to my lights and he moved himself back down to the sand bed so I left him there and I put a small rock under him buried under the sand for him to attach to.

 

[Smitty]

Well, keep us updated! LEDs are ever evolving and it is good to know what works and what doesn't! Seems like you are on the right track though!

 

[Saratj1]

I had a little problem yesterday, I ruined 3 of my emitters. I let the water level get a little low on the tank and I have a spray bar for the return on my canister filter and it splashed three emitters on the one side pretty good and they burnt themselves up. I replaced one emitter that is completely gone because I had an extra one, but two others are damaged but not completely gone , they are probably putting out about 50% power.
I should have but a piece of acrylic to protect them, and was planning on doing it, but just hadn't made it to the hardware store to get the plexiglas yet. Well needless to say it has a splash guard now. I will have to order 2 more emitters. They will take a couple weeks to get in.