Please teach me about LEDs.

for a tank of this size those marinelands arent exactly a huge risk,foster and smith refunds all uphappy customers without issue and its only what $300? the 36 to 48 runs at ove 3300 lumens i think

 

Marineland is junk. Do not buy them. If you were going with a CREE DIY setup, it depends on the stock you plan to keep. Give RapidLED a shout, and give them as much info as possible about your current stock, and what you plan to get...along with tank dimensions. They should fix you right up. I am also awaiting the debut of the Orphek PR-25s and PR-LM7's...but that is for a big build. I currently have 2 tanks, one with CREE 3W DIYs, and one with a BoostLED Mu135W fixture. The Boost fixture is nice, and for the money is a great buy for shallower tanks. I'm not sure on 22" + deep tanks, this light is sufficient.

 

I agree with face. Rapid led would be the best bet for DIY and get the dimming drivers and you can change the color to what ever you want. You can also have the Leds controlled by a controller to slowly ramp up and down simulating sunrise and sunset.

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Clearly you didn't take a look at the link I posted - It was to my build thread doing a Rapid LED DIY, not a link to Rapid's site.

You would have also seen I did a DIY fixture which hangs over my tank (ie - no canopy), and that my different colored LEDs are independently dimmable (ie - I control the color blend).

As others have said, what you specifically need depends upon your specific tank and your tank's needs.

And yes, Marineland is junk. Don't waste your money.

 

There is a million different answers to the question you are asking.. You will hear opinions pulling you in every direction. Funny thing is that it seems that the more people ask for help explaining, the more confused people get.. Not to mention that now LEDs are the buzzword of the industry right now so you will hear a lot of sales pitches. In my opinion, the best growth comes from halides. You will not need a chiller or anything to extravagant. I went from t5 to halide and t5 combo about 6 months ago. To dabble in LEDs, I switched my supplemental t5's to LEDs about 2 months ago. I love them for the colors they produce!!.. Going from 2- 48" 54w t5's to 12- 3w LEDs saves me 72w while running and the cost of t5 replacement. I'm waiting until the industry settles down a bit to go all LED. As for the metal halide option, hear me out on this. You could probably get away with 2- 150w halides. possibly even 70w if you dont have anything too demanding. You will get much better growth and results. I thought halides were the devil until I tried them. This is all my opinion from doing A LOT of research and I hope it is slightly helpful. Good luck!!

 

Thanks but no thanks. My LFS has the marinlands and the really are garbage. They barely light the bottom of a 10" tank. I wouldnt put them on a frshwater tank. but thanks anyway.

Actually I did check out the build thread but I got confused amongst the pages and wasnt sure what everthing was. But i will look further into your build thread

I was hoping somone could just explian to me what components the DIY consisted of. and roughly how many I needed for my tank (how many leds, and what other components. as far as my needs, m just looking to replace my t5's on a mixed reef. specs are in my cig.

Thank You but as I sad, I havnt the slightest bit of interest of getting halides. Im fully aware of all there benifits, and if seen many on many tanks, However I just do not want the extra cost to run them whatsoever. I am a very "green" person all about savng energy, which is another reason im interested in LED's

Thank You!

 

Fair enough. If I was you, I'd order this kit:
36 Premium LED DIY Kit with Dimmable Drivers

You will need a heatsink to put these one, I'd do one 30" long.
5.375" Wide x 30" Long Heatsink - HeatsinkUSA, LLC Store
You could do 2 seperate 15" ones if you prefer.

Use a fan on your heatsinks
92mm Vantec Stealth Fan Kit

Are you mounting this in a canopy or not? Do you plan to hang it over the tank?
If it's in a canopy, I wouldn't use any optics on the LEDs. If you're hanging, I'd use 80deg optics. Rapid sells hanging kits as well.

Finally, you'll need "something" to be able to dim the diodes with. You can do something like this:
DIY 2 color dimming kit
Or if you're willing to spend a little more:
DDC-01 PWM Controller

If you want to make things stupid easy, you could order two of these (instead of the other heatsink mentioned):
Drilled and Tapped 4.25" x 16" Heat Sink for 24 LEDs
Coupled with these:
Solderless Connector for CREE XR-E LEDs
However, this would prevent you from being able to use optics, but that won't be a problem unless you wanted the fixture hung a considerable distance above the tank. It would save a lot of time and labor on your end (no need to solder each diode).

 

Question, my tank is 36" long shouldnt I do a 34 or 36" heatsink? Also what is the purpose of the optics? and are they included with the led kit or sold seperate?

As of now no canopy. Can they be mounted on the tank instead of hungover? eventually I will do a canopy so should I not get optics?

And as far as color temp its all built in?

 

you cant just say a product is junk to another member without saying why that specific led fixture is junk
its been proven by very few people for THE PRICE the unit is not junk if you wanna spend $1200 thats a different story but if i can get it to work properly than its not junk

ive seen the double brights light a 80 inch tank so thats not exactly true you were probly looking at the $75 single bright which is infact junk

am i saying marineland is the best?nowhere close but for people who have to set a budget or somewhat of a budget on there tank with a minimum 30 day guarantee with foster and smith your not risking that much

 

I checked the dimension of a 46 bowfront before I answered, and my recommendation still stands. Here's why: Consider the light which is emitted from the LEDs has an "angle of projection", if you will. A fixture which is 3" from the end of your tank (36-30=6 6/2=3) will get plenty of light to that edge 3" away because of this. If you actually build a fixture 36" long over a 36" tank you'll be wasting half the output of the last diode on the end to the room.

Look at my build; I used 2 24" heatsinks on a 60" long tank. I left space inbetween them so I didn't get a bad shadow from the center brace.

They could be mounted to the tank somehow I'm sure. But this requires creativity from you to make that work. I hung mine to make it look a little "cleaner" and for the added benefit of being able to adjust the height they were off of the tank's surface.

If you do a canopy down the line you definitely won't want optics then. You could do fine without them now, as I said, unless you wanted to mount it really high above the tank. The purpose of the optics is provide better light penetration at increasing depth. Being that your tank is only 20" deep, you won't need them if the fixture is under12" above the surface of the tank.

Color temp, is inherent to the specific type/bin of diode. Those white LEDs have a specific range of color temp, as do the blues. You'll be able to control that mix/blend quite a bit if the whites/blues are independently dimmable. The links/parts I posted above would allow this.