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View Full Version : Suppliment Halide's with LED's


Lampshade
11-07-2011, 06:37 PM
Thought i would ask, been looking around, don't see too much on this topic.

So, currently i have 2 XM10K 250W halides with some PC atinics. This works great, but bulbs are getting old, need to be replaced soon. I was thinking of going with some EBay 14K's this time, and then adding a strip of cree XP-G's to help boost up the PAR.

I was thinking 24 XP-G's with 60degree optics driven at about 1000mA. This in theory should give me close to the same output as a 400W halide, but spread across the tank, hopefully getting the same or better PAR as i currently have when combined with the halides. Should i add a bunch of blue's in there too? or possibly run 20K halides to help get more color?

The reason for doing this is mainly cost, it's going to cost almost $200 for new bulbs, or about $250 for the LED's and the bulbs will only be another $50 with the EBAY ones. So it should pay for itself next year when it's time for new MH bulbs again.

If anyone has seen builds like this, or has any idea why this is a terrible idea, let me know. I think it should work well, the Blue LED's are more for color than anything. Keeping the halides should give that full spectrum that you pay lots of money for in high end LED fixtures.

sphelps
11-07-2011, 07:21 PM
Who told you 24 LEDs is eqiuv to 400W halide? That would mean I have equiv of 2000W of halide over my tank which isn't even close.

For supplemental I would stick to all royal blue LEDs in combination with halides and I wouldn't use 60 degree optics, 90 max, but personally wouldn't use any.

Lampshade
11-07-2011, 09:30 PM
24's LED's comparing to a 400W was a bad example, the AI has the same par, but nowhere near the spread using 16 XPG's and 8 blues.

The a reason i was thinking white was because the Halide already have a huge peak in the blue range, so the white LED's would spread out the light spectrum a bit more. After looking into it, the blues seem to have a very high par reading as well, i didn't expect that at all. I'll look into it a bit more.

As for optics I was wondering why not to use them? everywhere I've read shows that optics greatly increase the usable light, any reason not to?

sphelps
11-07-2011, 10:35 PM
In terms of PAR you have to think about what it means, this shows the typical chlorophyll spectrum that plants use for photosynthesis, you'll notice it's all in the red and blue so a light that emits purely blue light will have high PAR. Same reason that the LED grow lights only have blue and red leds, whites aren't as efficient, they contain some but not as much.

http://www.firstrays.com/Pictures/Chlorophyll.jpg

But the main reason I suggested royals for supplemental is they IMO are the real advantage to LED, they have a nice actinic affect while maintaining good output and will be beneficial for color and growth when combined with other lights. White leds offer very little in those areas.

kole
11-08-2011, 12:22 AM
Tagging along. I'm about to do a similar setup. I want to supplement a 250w halide over a 70 gallon corner tank.

Hiab422
12-15-2011, 01:28 PM
Mike have you thought about just using the Stunner strips for the supplemental led lights.I am going to try them out once my wife gives me back my wallet.:mrgreen:

Lampshade
12-15-2011, 02:56 PM
I just started looking at the stunner strips, seems like a good idea. The only issue i have is that they aren't the high power 3W bulbs, so won't have the same penetration to the bottom of the tank. They seems like a very good actinic replacement, but I was hoping to add more par through the 3W's. I think I'm going to go with 36 3W Cree's, 18XPG white and 18 blue.

I put my new halide bulbs in last week, and love them so far, and more importantly, my coral has shown no negative signs. Seems like my 1 year old bulbs had close to the same output as these cheap bulbs. I'm going to put this off for a bit now, and use my fish budget to finish off my stand that desperately needs to be covered, haha.

sphelps
12-15-2011, 03:08 PM
You should check out Steve's LEDs. A cheaper alternative but also there's some info there about using aluminium tube and pressurized fans as for heat sinks which might suit you.

18 blue, 18 white, two drivers, one power supply and two fans will run you about $300 with shipping. The aluminium tube can be purchased locally for pretty cheap.

Royal Blue LEDs (http://shop.stevesleds.com/Philips-Luxeon-ES-ROYAL-BLUE-3-Watt-LEDs-Philips-royal-blue.htm)
Cool White (http://shop.stevesleds.com/Philips-Luxeon-ES-COOL-WHITE-3-Watt-LEDs-Luxeon-ES-white.htm)
Triple Driver (http://shop.stevesleds.com/The-Triple-Dimming-LED-Driver-The-Triple.htm)
Power Supply (http://shop.stevesleds.com/Switching-Power-Supply-200w-25-83A-S-201-Switching-Power-Supply.htm)
Fans (http://shop.stevesleds.com/Pressurizing-Cooling-Fan-with-Power-Regulator-Pressurizing-Cooling-Fan-w-plug.htm)

Hiab422
12-15-2011, 03:46 PM
My bulbs arrived Monday they work and look great how can you lose for $9.95 a bulb for 15000k de will be ordering a couple of 20000k and see how they look.

Lampshade
12-15-2011, 04:21 PM
THanks, probably going to go with modularLED though. The price is nearly the same, with meanwell drivers. Best of all I don't have to spend a day soldering, which with the chaos in my house means that it won't happen for 6+ months. It's taken me nearly a year to build my arduino controller because finding time to bring it out is near impossible. I'm just going to use an aluminium channel for a heat sink, with 6+ temp sensors on it that will shut off the LED's on high temp. If it happens often I may upgrade, but shouldn't be too bad.

Lampshade
12-15-2011, 04:27 PM
Those drivers/power supply are nice though, and cheap, haha. I'll look into them a bit more. Says it can take PWM inputs, so could work pretty well.