48 replies to this topic

[CMYK]

dam they really do look tidy , cant wait to see them in the new tank.

[jslayz]

dam they really do look tidy , cant wait to see them in the new tank.

Wait no more, pic below at full power with no lights on in area:

 PICT1342.JPG   97.95KB   223 downloads

Currently running them on setting 2 of 8 so plenty of head room.

Let me know when u wanna come round!

J

[OrangeBemba]

Looks really good.

Where did you get the black plastic that holds the lights?

[jslayz]

Looks really good.

Where did you get the black plastic that holds the lights?

Orange Bemba it's powder coated aluminium from Alspec in Malaga.
Expensive for what it is ($50) Had it powder coated up the road from my work ($50)

Bolted it together with bits from bunnings.

J

[raven]

i actully considered doing something similar i work for a lighting company and we will be selling a pond type light fully submersable not individual like yours though ! fully remote controlled so it can be set to one colour or can rotate through several different colours i think it would look cool but i dont know how much it would freak the fish out or if it would be to bright for a tank but in a pond would loook awsome but what your doing looks really good very nice

[troyww]

What leds did you end up getting . They look like cree's but there are dozens of different colour temps and intensities . I made a 3 light job for my bike with 3 x Q5 crees and the light output is incredible .
I read a bit about pot growers using red and blue lights to increase plant growth which would sound like the go for a planted aquarium but the particular wavelenth of red and blue are apparently very important .
BTW the cheapest place I found for cree's was deal extreme

[jslayz]

Have heard of deal extreme sometimes not packing them well enough so went to cutter.

They are cree MCE running 2.8A at 3.4V each.
they are the 430lumen minimum bin with colour temp between 5000 to 10,000K

J

[troyww]

You inspired me . With the Ausie dollar so good I ordered a few leds .
Thought I'd start a bit smaller and cooler and see how it goes .
This is what I ordered : http://www.dealextre...ils.dx/sku.2395 13 off @ $3.24US each(bulk rate) = $58Aus delivered
I've ordered 2 previous lots of leds and small drivers/pucks from them and no problems .
I was looking at this http://cgi.ebay.com....e=STRK:MEWNX:IT
as a power source but will get my electrician friend to sus it out for me today .

So total of $100 plus wire and heat sinking should give me 13 x 87 = 1131 Lumens+ .
Per lumen it's still way more expensive than just using t5HO fluorescent tubes but thats not the point is it ?

[jslayz]

So what are you lighting up? 1100 lumens is not much if you r lighting a big tank.....

I'm running about 3000 into my tank to light it well and that is going over 1.875msq area

Bad news about my set up is that one driver has inexplicably stopped working and I have to remove it for a replacement on the weekend.
Just a dud driver as all others are fine.

J

[Warby]

Hey J,

Sorry if I missed it elsewhere but, if you dont mind me asking, what did this end up costing you to put together? With power bills on the up and up and me wanting to get more and more tanks I'm looking at options to reduce my power consumption throughout the house and LED lighting for the tanks is looking like a brilliant idea...

-Dave

[troyww]

Going to use it to light the back half of my corner display unit as I can't get a normal flouro to fit in and nothing grows up the back of the tank .
Probably could of rigged up a compact flouro come to think of it ...

[jslayz]

Warby the whole project cost $1200 but it lights a 2.5mtr wide tank with about 60W!!
Will take 5 years to recover costs and that is mainly due to not having to replace fluro globes every year.
But will save on power bills long term like for 15 years !

J

[Fox]

Have you got any updated pics Jay? With fish in

[Warby]

Yeah $1200 to light a tank your size seems pretty reasonable to me.. especially like you say when you take into account the ongoing costs of ownership..

[troyww]

Yeah $1200 to light a tank your size seems pretty reasonable to me.. especially like you say when you take into account the ongoing costs of ownership..

Really ? . How do you figure that ?
I think you will find existing LEDS are not a lot more efficient than current T5 fluorescents after you factor in inefficient led drivers .
Also with fluoro's you can swap and change your tubes to achieve what ever colour temp you want with a nice even light . I also believe colour temperature is more important than actual lumens .
You can buy 100W of fluorescents in a simple ready to use package for a couple of hundred dollars .

Having said that LEDS are getting a lot better , Cree have just released their new XP-G seies of emitters that supposedly have an efficiency of 110+ Lumens/Watt . Cutters sell them and I'll probably grab some to check out when the price of them drops a bit when a few more suppliers have them .

Leds are not yet ready for prime time/mainstream because there are more economical alternatives and thats why leds only have a tiny tiny percentage of the lighting market .

On the plus side Leds have a much longer life than anything else and when their initial purchase cost drops they will own the market . Theres lots of companies poised to cash in developing LED light sources and the second they become viable there will be thousands of ready made cost effective led lighting solutions .

Having said that , from my own observations LEDS seem way more efficient , thats probably due to the more focused light output .

[Warby]

I doubt very much you're going to find a ready to use light package to suit an 8' + tank for a couple of hundred dollars. Add to that the cost of replacing globes every 12 months or so and it will definately cost more over the long term than J's $1200 LED setup.

I dont really think efficiency and colour spectrum are much of an issue unless you're talking planted tanks, which this is not. If we're not talking planted tanks, I'd much rather have a less efficient 60W that adequately illuminates the tank for me to view it than an efficient 100W in the "ideal" colour spectrum.

-Dave

[jslayz]

Yes you pay when you are on the bleeding edge of technology but it was hell fun to make!!
A great sense of achievement when I fired it up

Colour spectrum is important that is why I went with a similar spectrum to the fluro tubes I like.
Going 5-10,000K means bluer so green diatomic algae and green glass (12mm and yes I am splitting hairs) will be counteracted somewhat.

Custom was the only tidy looking option for my sized tank.

To light my tank the way my setup does with t5 was going to cost $660 for 4 x 3ft T5 units plus 8 globes each year after that.

Also the 'look' of the existing tech was IMO pretty terrible. The aesthetics of the finished product was a big factor for me.

See below pics taken with NO flash:

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[Warby]

Well it certainly turned out very well

[troyww]

Yea pretty much the reasons why I'm giving it a crack (bit of fun and sense of achievement living on the cutting edge ). Except my tank is planted and I use 65000k globes and colour is important . Not sure what the deal with cutters is because they don't seem to give specific colour bins . It's no wonder they have given incandescent the flick when you look at the amount of light your setup provides compared to one 60W globe .
Your plantless setup seems ideal for high colour temp leds and your implementation looks very very slick , well done .
Not sure if anyone has looked at the super expensive led auarium lights but they are suited for planted tanks with extra dedicated blue and red leds . They propably illuminate the tank making it look arse but they are supposed to be very good for plant growth . I don't use co2 so probably be too much anyway . Have enough problems with blackbeard in my 2 small tanks as it is .
Once I get it going ( a few weeks by the time it gets here ) I'll let you know how it compares to T5 fluorescents with plant growth .

[jslayz]

Let's see how you go, definitely post pics of the hardware and your progress.
If you need to grow plants I'm sure you could get some of the new coloured MCE and tune the colour temp to how you want.
Would cost you though......4 drivers, use one for each colour and get individual star boards for the Leds.
This would give you 4096 colour temp variations, one would have to be right for plants.

J