Looking to add some supplemental leds

I have a 210 gallon with a 12 bulb T5 Aquatic Life 6 foot fixture. It has been great, but I want to get a little more pop and growth from my SPS. I no little to nothing about LEDs, but I was hoping to add on some LED strips to supplemt the T5s and add a little color. I have a canopy on the tank, but I also saw some that I could mount to my existing fixture. Suggestions on what to look for would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

Talk to Mike at RapidLED! He will walk you through it. I would suggest some UV LED's along with whatever colors you might want. They have a real easy solderless kit that I ordered, but some color LEDs aren't available for it yet (UVs are).
Also, cosmo and Evolved are great sources of LED info on 3reef

 

Cool, thanks I'll do that

 

Would these guys do anything for me?

AquaticLife Expandable LED Fixture

 

I think you would be better off with a rapid kit with just blue or royal blue or 5050 if you are just looking to add more blue to your tank. I wouldn't bother with UV leds personally since your t5s already put out some(if you are even a believer in needing em). What exactly are you trying to accomplish with adding em is the biggest question?

 

I would get a 24 led dimmable kit. Since you have most of the white spectrum covered with your T-5 I would accent with 12 blue-8 UV- Then depending on the corals you feel need to pop in your aquarium 4 Green or Red or two of each. Put the 12 Blue on one driver and the rest on a seperate one. If you don't have a controller, i would invest in the boost Typhon controller. With this setup you could run the blues as moonlight and adjust how much accent colors the light delivers at will. I think this setup would cost you less then 300 bucks with all the wire etc. you would need.

If you don't feel like DIY- get 4 Stunna strips

 

I love the DIY guy...but right now that is not me. I don't have a lot of money, but I have far less time

I assume you are talking about these guys right?

Ecoxotic 36 Inch Stunner 18W LED Strip

Will these only accent or will they increase light output to help with growth?

 

They mostly are designed to help with coloration. you will see better colors with them but not significant growth improvement

 

Those look cool, but if i am going to add 4 strips and spend $400 I would hope they would at least help promote growth. Am I kidding myself in thinking I can add LED strips to my existing lighting system and get both color and additional growth? My tank is 29" so I want to be able to add some SPS in the middle /lower section possibly as well as produce enough light for some clams.

Also...if i went with the stunner strips how many and what colors?

 

you could look at ReefBrite their high output version of the strip led light. These things have added some serious color pop to a bunch of t5 setups on some peoples tanks i know. They will help in growth too, At least ive seen their sps show better polyp extension after adding the strips.

attached are pics of someones tank on my other forum of his setup using t5's, then a pic with t5's and the added reefbrites and then the last is just the blue led on. THese strips add alot of pop and they have produced better growth too.