24" depth, who runs t5, who runs MH?

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Ron99

LEDs are better than either MH or T5. Sorry couldn't resist

But seriously, they are the future for lighting in our hobby. Only problem is up front cost. I am looking at eventually building my own array for my new 65 gallon and it will probably cost me $1100 to $1200 in parts. But that will come down over time as the LEDs get cheaper. Long term benefits are lower energy consumption and no bulb changes as the LEDs should last from 8 to 11 years depending on photoperiod. I'll have PAR as good as a 250W MH with no heat transfer to the tank. With more LEDS and tighter optics you can easily hit 400W MH PAR levels but then the build costs go up too. Final benefit is you can adjust the colour temperature anywhere you want it and the Cree royal blue LEDs generate great Fluorescence in the corals and if you can build and program a controller you can dim them for dawn/dusk or moonlight effects.

Ron, have you been to that nano reef tank dot com site, some of the best info I have seen on leds and DIY leds is there, but there are some misconceptions. the first being is that LEDs do creat a whole lot of heat, but it is nopt radiated to the water as you already stated but needs a heat removal system which increases the cost as heat sinks are not cheep. also by saying 250 watt PAR levels or 400 watt PAR levels is not realy true, the largest PAR values I have seen were compared to a DIY probe start ballast SE bulb with no reflector, but to even get close to that one they had to use CREE LEDs (the brightest ones they make) and had to get after market 45degree reflectors and realy tight spacing. not even close to afordable on a large tank as it wasn't afordable on a 10 gal by most people standards. that was also at a fairly close distance, as the LED reflectors seam to have a limited optimization range. I have realy been looking into building an aray, and I have come up with my own ways to save a bit of mony but still for a 28 gal tank I am looking at 48 LED's to get 150wattish levels and 64 LEDs to get what I think would realisticly be 200 wattish levels. so for a price estimate for 64 Cree Leds you are looking at a cost of 1280.00 just for the LEDs, then you need reflectors, which I have see for 5.00 each so another 320.00, now heat sink material.. just a guess at 1 to 200.oo bucks. now you need 1 driver for say every 6 LED's at 32.00 each = 400ish and then misc stuff say 100.00.

so looking at 2300 to get the same or a little less light on a 28 gal as a 250 watt set up with a perfectly seamless coverage and blend of color.

now maybe you have a contact where you can get cree stars for less than 20 each, if so tell me please but after you get them you still need to know how to do plate soldering (which can be done in a oven if you are carfull) Oh I for got the power supply so you can drive the whole system off 110 but only have low voltage at your drivers for saftey. so another 50 to 100.00

Don't get me wrong, I do think LEDs are the way of the future, but in afordability it is a long way off.

Steve