Welp the more and more i think about replacing my MH bulbs as its getting to be that time again... i've been thinking about putting the money i would spend on the bulbs into investing into a DIY LED build.
I just wanna figure out first, how many LED's ill need. I've heard between 48-72.
My tank is a 90g 24" tall, and i plan on hanging the LED's about a foot above the water.
I have a mixed reef sps/lps, SPS mainly mid tank/to a lil higher.
What size heat sink?
i've been thinking about going cool white, neutral white, and royal blue mix. 2:1:1 (RB,CW,NW)
I also think i might need lenses.. though i dunno what kinda spacing im going with yet as this is just in the initial pricing planning stage.
48 isn't even close to enough, but 72 is about right. Set it up in an 18x4 array with 2" spacing between LEDs per row, and 3" between rows. Add 60 degree optics, and you should have a good setup for a mixed reef, even with the array mounted about a foot over the tank.
At this point, I would just use neutral and royals. Don't bother with cool whites. The color rendition benefits of neutral whites makes it worth using by themselves. There has been a lot of discussion on ratios for neutrals and royals, pointing to a 1:2 ratio, but if you use dimmable drivers, I still think a 1:1 ratio is the way to go, just from a color blending standpoint.
Agreed I would like to know why also. I have a 24 LED panel over a 24" tank and am getting PAR higher than a 400w MH. Granted I did hang it high and am using 40-60* optics. But I would think using two of 24 LED panels over a 48" wide tank would be plenty.
24" long, 24" tall. I'm talking 400 PAR at the center on the sand bed and 200 PAR on the sand bed at the sides.
That sounds pretty good. However, if you doubled your tank length and used a second identical 24 LED arrays wouldn't the top-center of the tank be lacking some coverage and likely have lower PAR?
Evil, for your 2 inch between measurements do you measure from the center of the LED or the edge of the star? and why 3" between rows?
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Thinking of going LED
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Originally Posted by rosebud161616
