10 gallon AIO rock wall

[noirsphynx]

Yes, there's wires. I'm going to hook them up to a 12 volt power supply that I forgot I had.

I bought a few of the 12cm size


PS - They come in an envelope, no extra packing so damage could easily happen in the mail, especially coming all the way from Hong Kong.

[karazy]

okay, well then it shouldn't be too bad.
i might hook 2 or 3 up to one higher power adapter.
i think i might ask the supplier before i order that if i flip him like an extra 10 bucks he could package them in atleast a large envelope with foam peanuts, more preferably a box. the envelope is probably because of the free shipping.

make sure to get some pics up when you get those badboys hooked up, plz plz plz

[BlueAbyss]

Hey just noticed this... may have come across it before...

What kind of LEDs are these? If you are planning on growing ANYTHING with LEDs they will have to be 1. run on an LED (constant current) driver, and 2. definitely high power LEDs, specially in a tank that deep. I doubt these LEDs will work for anything other than a FOWLR, for sure if run directly off of your power supply. They are likely 25mA LEDs, but it would be best if you could figure out what the current rating is on each LED and how the array is connected (likely in series).

There are some great threads on NR about this, PM me if you are interested further in this... though I thought you had another tank thread around somewhere so this project may have been sidelined?

[karazy]

yup, it's a side project.

i found out earlier in this thread that 4 of the 24 bulb LEDS equals 480 lumens.
not sure bout PAR. but since ill now be using the 48 bulb fixtures i think it should work.

Noirsphynx used two 12 bulb fixtures on his..i think 10 gallon, and he used them as moonlights and from pictures they look plenty bright.

I might try this out as an experiment at the shop if colby lets me(buy 2 strips, put them over a few zoanthids or something, or put the corals in a tank and only use the LEDs, and see the reaction)

Who knows, i might have to end up going the super DIY way like people have been on nanoreef. We'll see

[Ron99]

You will not be able to keep corals with those LEDs. Forget the wattage or lumen ratings they quote. The PAR will be insufficient. I am planning a 2 gallon pico and even for that I will be using 8 or 9 Luxeon Rebel LEDs. The LEDs alone will cost me about USD $55 plus shipping. If you are on a budget go with one of the compact flourecsent fixtures mentioned. If you want LEDs for a 5.5 gallon that will actually work for anything but FOWLR then it will probably cost you at least $150 by the time you buy the LEDs, power supply, constant current drivers, heat sink, fan etc.

Those LED strips are a waste of money for anything other than moonlights or accent lighting. They will not work as a main source of PAR in your tank.

[karazy]

blueabyss, how do you plan on making these so called "pendants"?
and where are you buying all your LED supplies from?

so i think i might end up doing the whole "super DIY" like the people on nanoreef have been doing with the heat sink and LED drivers,ect.

and guys, please remember im not going for super high power metal halide type lights. I just want to keep zoas,rics, and some of the easier LPS.

oops, i guess i shud change my title. im using a 10 gallon

[Snaz]

The lighting forum on nano-reef.com has some great DIY LED projects running. I would say everything you need to know is in that forum or the people there can answer for you if you take the time to search first.

[Ron99]

Sorry if I sounded overly critical. That wasn't the intent. Just trying to help you avoid wasted money and grief over dead coral. The problem with standard leds is they just don't generate intense enough light to penetrate more than a few inches into water with sufficient par to keep photosynthetic organisms alive. It may look bright to your eye but it won't have enough energy to keep things alive. It won't work, even for zoas or mushrooms etc. You need the high power leds to get light that is intense enough to penetrate down into the tank.

Lighting a 10 gallon with leds will be even more expensive and you are probably looking at something in the USD $250 to $300 range at the minimum for parts to make it work. I would recommend a T5HO fixture for the 10 gallon. I have one on mine from fishneedit.com. It is a 24" 4 bulb 96 watt fixture but it fits on a 10 gallon. It just hangs over the ends of the tank a bit on each end. You should be able to get it, shipping included, for about USD $111. It's a good fixture for the money. The bulbs aren't the best but will work for zoas and softies and you can upgrade to better bulbs in 8 to 12 months when it's time for a bulb change. LEDs have a lot of potential but to do it right at this time is expensive.

[BlueAbyss]

Originally Posted by karazy

blueabyss, how do you plan on making these so called "pendants"?
and where are you buying all your LED supplies from?

so i think i might end up doing the whole "super DIY" like the people on nanoreef have been doing with the heat sink and LED drivers,ect.

and guys, please remember im not going for super high power metal halide type lights. I just want to keep zoas,rics, and some of the easier LPS.

oops, i guess i shud change my title. im using a 10 gallon

Hmm okay, a couple things.

I'll be ordering the LEDs premounted on star boards from www.ledsupply.com... a US company but the only place I've seen that sells this sort of thing online. They actually sell everything I'll need but some of the stuff I'll be using will come from Canada (heatsink, fan, power supply).

I'm planning on growing SPS in 8" of water... my planned array (there will be 3 of them) is 1 - Cree MC-E chip (6.5K) with 4 Cree XR-E Royal Blue chips (~460 nm)... I'll end up with about a 14 - 20K look though this will be adjustable. And the PAR should be more than sufficient for SPS since the water is only 8" deep and the lights will be 1/2" or so from the water surface.

I should note that there will definitely be some spotlighting within the tank. I've planned for this since the goal is to light 'islands' of rock rather than evenly light the whole sandbed, and I think the effect will be cool. This will also leave lower light areas for things like zoas and ricordea, but the focus is keeping (and growing) SPS.

So I guess it all depends on what you want and what you need it to do. For your purposes I would say a 1 - 1 ratio of XR-E cool whites to royal blues would more than do it, and would likely penetrate to the bottom of a 10 gallon without optics (lenses). But it will be expensive if you are planning on lighting the whole tank with this... for localized high intensity light it's fine, but for anything else it's expensive.

The LEDs you have will be fine for general viewing purposes but will likely not produce enough light to grow even zoas unless the zoas are right beneath them in less than a couple inches of water. I would consider using them along with a higher intensity light source... if you're still set on LEDs it can be done modularly. I'll explain more about my idea later, I gotta go to work

[belzebuth]

Originally Posted by noirsphynx

Yes, there's wires. I'm going to hook them up to a 12 volt power supply that I forgot I had.

I bought a few of the 12cm size


PS - They come in an envelope, no extra packing so damage could easily happen in the mail, especially coming all the way from Hong Kong.

Noirsphynx,
You need to use a power supply and reverse the wires...Honkong stuff. I use these for moonlight as well.