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

[Ryan]

Steve checkout LED Supply. Even with shipping, exchane and duties the Cee LED's would be 20 peice. Maybe closer to 14.

[Canadian]

Steve,

I should get you out to measure the PAR of my 6 x 24W fixture. I'm sure the PAR isn't spectacular given that we know 80W T5s are the most powerful and efficient. If nothing else I should buy my own Quantum meter so I can post some values.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Canadian

Steve,

I should get you out to measure the PAR of my 6 x 24W fixture. I'm sure the PAR isn't spectacular given that we know 80W T5s are the most powerful and efficient. If nothing else I should buy my own Quantum meter so I can post some values.

no problem, my schedual is a little hetic with me being Mr. Mom now, but I am off work at 3 every day and depending where you live I don't have to pick up kids till 4:45 in langford.

Shoot me a PM and we can figure something out, I even know where my Meter is as I didn't pack it

Steve

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Ryan

Steve checkout LED Supply. Even with shipping, exchane and duties the Cee LED's would be 20 peice. Maybe closer to 14.

hmm there actualy 39 each from that site.

you can get the dimmer ones for cheeper, about 12ish so you can take about 500 off my cost estimate of 2300. still to darn rich for my blood. you could use the 9 buck ones which would take 650.00 off but then your only going to get less than T5 lighting levels

[Ron99]

Hi Steve,

I have read alot about LEDs on nanoreef. I may get in on the current group buy which will get the prices down as low as possible. You should check out what Evill66 posts. He has tons of experience with LEDs and PAR levels and knows his stuff. LEDs are able to compete with MH and will bleach corals if you aren't careful. I think some of the older comparisons were made with products like the Solaris fixtures that used older Luxeon III LEDs etc. The newer Cree LEDs put out alot of light and alot more PAR.

Which LEDs are you looking at? If it's the MC-Es then yeah, they are a bit expensive and probably overkill. If you put tight optics on an MC-E you will probably bleach any corals directly under it unless they are deeper in your tank. Also, I don't think there are any royal blue MC-Es yet. XR-Es put out alot of light and PAR and can be had for USD $6.00 each on stars. In the group buy they will probably end up around $5.75 a piece and then optics are $1 each. Luxeon Rebels are really good too but optics are more limited. I am considering a 68 to 72 Cree XR-E LED array with 60 degree optics which should give me more than 150W MH performance. That is more than adequate for what I want to keep as I want to do a progression of higher to lower light corals from the top down. But nothing really demanding or requiring really high light.

I'm not really sure what LEDs you're looking at and what prices you are getting but those prices seem awfully high compared to what I have found at LED Supply, Cutter, ETG Tech etc. LEDs , optics and drivers/power supplies for my array would work out to about USD $650 to $700.

Assuming your tank is something like 30 by 12 inches you could probably get away with a 45 LED array (15 x 3) with 40 degree optics and you would have at least 250W MH performance. Cost of parts would be around USD $270 for LEDs, USD $45 for optics. The Meanwell drivers are a great option as they incorporate the power supply and driver in one and run off 110V. You could drive up to 13 LEDs on each one so you would need 4 of them. If you buy them yourself they would probably run around $50 to $60 each but in volume with the group buy at nanoreef they will likely come in at around USD $33 each. They are also dimmable with a few extra inexpensive components so you could run blues and whites off separate drivers and adjust your colour temperature and brightness.

Also, if the LEDs are already mounted on stars there is no need for plate soldering or anything like that. Simply mount them to the heatsink and wire the proper pads on the stars. As for heat, yes, you are right. they generate alot of heat upwards, not down into the tank. I picked up a large industrial heat sink at a salvage yard for $40 which will be more than adequate. If I bought the heatsink commercially I would probably be looking at $100 or so for that.

So the prices for DIY are not cheap but when you look at long term savings in electricity and bulbs it works out to be cheaper after a couple of years use.

Cheers,

Ron

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Ron99

I picked up a large industrial heat sink at a salvage yard for $40 which will be more than adequate. If I bought the heatsink commercially I would probably be looking at $100 or so for that.

Cheers,

Ron

I was looking at the MC-e stars for the white, then getting XR-E's for the blue and a few UV to throw in there. was going to use 60 to 80 degree optics on the MC-e's and 40 on the royal blues.

what was the heat sink you got from? I was thinjing of just getting a slab of aluminum and making my own but that is darn expensive.

Steve

[Ron99]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

I was looking at the MC-e stars for the white, then getting XR-E's for the blue and a few UV to throw in there. was going to use 60 to 80 degree optics on the MC-e's and 40 on the royal blues.

what was the heat sink you got from? I was thinjing of just getting a slab of aluminum and making my own but that is darn expensive.

Steve

Steve,

From what I have read the MC-E is overkill for aquarium lighting unles you have an extra deep tank. The XR-E whites are more than up to the task and are a fraction of the cost. You will also get a better balance between white and blue if you stick to all XR-E emitters. You can probably get similar PAR using all XR-Es with 40 degree optics at lower cost. With 40 degree optics you will need to keep the LED spacing between 1.5" to 2" apart. Going to 60 degree you are only increasing the spacing to maybe 2" to 2.5" so you won't save much in number of LEDs but given the 4 to 5 fold greater cost you will save alot going to XR-Es instead of MC-Es.

One thing that people don't realize is that PAR is not directly dependent on lumen output in LEDs. LEDs emit their light in a fairly narrow spectrum compared to other lights so from my understanding they produce more PAR per lumen (a crude description). in other words, they may not look as bright as some MH but they are producing as much, if not more, PAR.

As for the heatsink, I have no idea what it came from. It is 5 inches wide and it was something like 15 feet long. I had them cut some off and I will run two strips side by side so it will end up being about 10 inches wide and I'll probably go around 40 inches in length.

Anyhow, this is all a bit off topic to the MH vs. T5 debate. We can keep it going if others are interested to or just PM me if you have some more questions etc.

Cheers,

Ron