DIY LED AI sol spectrum supplementation!

I'm tagging along too Grim. I'm curious to see what you come up with and how it works out...

 

The new colors could be... but they still may not mix well with the AIs... I know Jonathan at reefwerks is working with a computer simulator to help. This project could get real interesting.

 

You are gonna love the fuller spectrum! I dont have coral colonies like you, not even close, but Ive started to see some positive changes with my corals.

 

Still working on this project! It's looking like I'm going to do this in 2 24" strips with red, green, True-violet, deeper royal blue than my ai and cyan. The unit will be dimmable but each color won't be seperate.

 

Anyone know of any other sources for custom led figures? I haven't heard from jonathan at reefwerks.com in a few days and an ready to make some progress on this plan.

 

Hmmm, no I dont know any other custom guys.. whats wrong with reefwerks?

 

Just have not heard from him in a while. I'm ready to get it done. I have actually considered adding some t5s instead. Sure would be cheaper. I could add 4 t5s and another ai module for less than I an assuming this is going to cost.

 

I have decided to go with:

3 purple plus t5s (I'll swap one for coral plus if its too pink)
2 vho true actinics
Tek Reflectors
2 icecap 660 ballasts!

All pieces are ordered and should be installed by next weekend!!

 

I've seen the SOL Blu in person, and I personally do not like it (the color). The unit itself is sheer awesome but I don't like the color. It's too frosty blue and anemic.


Anyhow, if you are looking to get better red punch out of the whole deal, I actually recommend you try adding in a few warm white LEDs. You'd only need a few of them. The warm whites will give you all sorts of the nicer red/orange/amber color that we want to see pop in our tanks.


Warm whites are not that ugly piss yellow that you see in warm white fluorescent bulbs. They look more amber. I know my 11g nano isn't much proof of anything, but here is what 3 warm white, 3 neutral white, and 12 royal blue looks like over a 36" long, 9" tall, 9" wide tank.

My camera won't get the color right, no matter how I fiddle with the white balance, so I did have to mess with the color in Picasa just a little, and that's why some of the whites look like overexposed green (ie, the clam shell on the left). But, this is very much what the tank looks like in person.

 

I bit the bullet and basically went this exact direction!!

The t5s just aren't working out for me. Without a radical change to my hood they look like crap in the room (color in the tank is great though lol)


I just ordered (from ledgroupbuy):
18 Cree XML warm whites (3000kelvin) with 60degree optics
30 Cree True Violet (400-420nm) with 60degree optics

I'm planning on mounting them to a 1.1" x 60" heatsink
I'll probably run 28 UV and 14 XML and sandwich the xml between two true violets in clusters down the heatsink. I want to be able to dim and control on my apex.