fishybuisness
Aquarium Advice Freak
Ok so I'm thinking of retro fitting a led square into my bio cube. The light I'm looking at is 144 watts..is that too much for a tank my size?
Biocube lighting upgrade
- Thread starter fishybuisness
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Grizz
Aquarium Advice Addict
It's gonna be bright, try wiring a dimmer in with the upgrade or using less LED's to lower the wattage
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fishybuisness
Aquarium Advice Freak
Do you think it would be better adding three 9w led strips totalling 99watts?
Grizz
Aquarium Advice Addict
It depends on what your have in the tank Why are you upgrading? SPS? I'd go with the strips as you could add more if needed LED's tend to focus the light better so it punches through the water better I think 99 watts would work well for your tank
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fishybuisness
Aquarium Advice Freak
Im in the process of building a fully stocked reef tank out if it and I don't want to be really limited..I think I'll go with the strips ..now is there a difference between 9w of actinic and 9w of 12k?
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fishybuisness
Aquarium Advice Freak
For instance would it be better to have two stock actinic bulbs in my biocube then 3 12 k strips
Grizz
Aquarium Advice Addict
Yes your right the coral will use the blue spectrum more than the white I'd start with 2 blue and 1 white. You can always ad more if need be I know Mr X runs only blue over his frags and has great growth.
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fishybuisness
Aquarium Advice Freak
I'm just worried that if I use the white led strips the color won't blend in the lights. I had that problem using an actinic bulb and 50/50 there was a white strip across the back of my tank.
Grizz
Aquarium Advice Addict
I would run them Blue white blue The colors will blend giving a slight blue tint making the colors in the coral pop You could even run B W B W The white will be brighter washing out the blue as far as your eye can tell.
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fishybuisness
Aquarium Advice Freak
Do you think i'd be better having my stock blue actinin with a stock 12k PC-R bulb. then 450nm blue led strips in between.
Grizz
Aquarium Advice Addict
That may work it will give your tank a blue look though. But IMO it wont support SPS I'd search the nano threads and see what others did for lighting.
Look at this guys thread awesome nano IMHO http://www.nyreefs.org/forums/showthread.php?t=626
Look at this guys thread awesome nano IMHO http://www.nyreefs.org/forums/showthread.php?t=626
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fishybuisness
Aquarium Advice Freak
Heres what im gonna do. Starting from the Fans. 50/50 LED strip - Stock 450nm actinic - 450nm LED strip- Stock 12k PC-R bulb - 450nm Actinic LED. this will total 99 watts of light. And Grizz, even with the PC-R bulb you dont think i can support SPS? the PC-R is suposed to put out 60% more light than others. oh i'll also being doing a fan upgrade with all of this as well.
Grizz
Aquarium Advice Addict
With 99 watts you should be good just place any SPS towards the top of your tank Good idea with fan forgot about that 
