Fleshy's 125g Build

[Kevin8888]

well its designed to replace MH, and they have a similar spotlight effect to MH as a picture somewhere on that site shows, but either way normaly those "moduals" cost $600ish for the full thing with heatsink/whatever fully assembled, plus the bored connects to a controler that can dim/change % of white and blue, as well as simulate lunar cycles.

though low spread would be good for me as I need deep penetration as my next tank is going to be 6' high so i need minimum 3.5 penitration for my sps/lps and still good penitration for my low light corals near the bottom.

why would it need to be regulated? it could easily be an acceptable power supply in a "attractive" housing, and they rated their fixtures for over 50000 hrs of use

WOW call me stupid, i just looked up the specs lol, the leds just clip right to the bored haha....

Oh and as for optics spread i would say worst case just buy lenses with better spred for those leds

 

[Heathd]

well its designed to replace MH, and they have a similar spotlight effect to MH as a picture somewhere on that site shows, but either way normaly those "moduals" cost $600ish for the full thing with heatsink/whatever fully assembled, plus the bored connects to a controler that can dim/change % of white and blue, as well as simulate lunar cycles.

though low spread would be good for me as I need deep penetration as my next tank is going to be 6' high so i need minimum 3.5 penitration for my sps/lps and still good penitration for my low light corals near the bottom.

Yea, well then that solves it, its great for you. I am used to assuming that most people dont have that deep of a tank.

SIX FEET....lulz, how many gallons...er...litres in your neck of the woods.

Oh, and to your edit, DC voltage isnt exceptionally stable. In the old days, back when cars had generators in place of altenators, the generators would end up being replaced often because would arc to themselves and essentially destroy themselves.

Now, in that instance, we are talking about more current, but you get the idea.

Regulating the DC supply protects the leds. Just imagine, you get a nice little swing in intensity and POP.... goes the led.


The car generator story came from an electrical engineering instructor when I took an elementary engineering course. It surprised me that they would allow for a piece of equipment to be installed when it had such volatile behavior.

 

[Kevin8888]

Its going to be either 1000gal or 1500gal. probs not going to be building it for a few years though, and sorry fleshy for hyjacking ur thread lol.

 

[FLESHY]

No thats cool...lets keep it objective though. Im probably going to try to go LED...the ones I outlined have great reviews from a lot of people. Either that or I will go with building my own from reefled...but that seems more expensive. The PAR readings from the one I showed you guys BEAT out MH competition...you could grow acro almost all the way to the bottom of that thing.

 

[Kevin8888]

reefled is WAY more money, they are retailing kit for 48leds around 500+ the one u linked to has 120ish leds for 400ish, though at the same time its rated higher then 250watt MH i was going to put 4x400watt MH. though just looked and found out the reason why the fixture is cheaper they dont use cree leds.

 

[Heathd]

reefled is WAY more money, they are retailing kit for 48leds around 500+ the one u linked to has 120ish leds for 400ish, though at the same time its rated higher then 250watt MH i was going to put 4x400watt MH. though just looked and found out the reason why the fixture is cheaper they dont use cree leds.

yea, if its not cree, its not worth it

 

[Kevin8888]

yea, if its not cree, its not worth it

heck with the shear number of LEDs Im going to need (Well into the multi hundreds if not 1000) I mite as well call up cree and ask for a bulk discount haha.

 

[Heathd]

heck with the shear number of LEDs Im going to need (Well into the multi hundreds if not 1000) I mite as well call up cree and ask for a bulk discount haha.

You might be better off that way, because the cheapest I have found the cree xre is 5.15 a pop....

so....5.15x1000.... you see where that is going.

 

[FLESHY]

I have seen crees cheaper than that.

Aside from all this, heathd...it looks like you are going to have to take a road trip up here. I have spent a couple WEEKS looking through LED stuff, and to be honest I am lost deep in the woods. There is so much out there...who knows.

It DOESNT use crees, but the quality of the LEDs in the system I showed is high. It is also possible with that system to upgrade to crees, but most of the owners that I have talked to so far have been so happy with the system that it hasnt happened. Only one person that I have talked to actually upgraded, and he said that he probably didnt need to.

 

[FLESHY]

Okay guys...heres the latest. Heath and I were chatting it up last night, and my next project with this bad boy is to sump it. (I have been wasting too much money on my planted tank. Yar.)

Heres the general idea. As the tank is stocked, I do not have the money, or the means...The overflow will be in the form of a HOT. That will go into the largest rubbermaid container that I can buy at Fleetfarm that fits in my cabinet. I am thinking I will light the sump with 2x CFL clamp lights @6500k. It will start with 24/7 lighting most likely...and it will be undivided for now as I only have one kind of macro to put in it. (Eventually I will split it up with egg crate as I grow different macros to make awesome dehydrated tang food. ) At the opposite end of the rubbermaid will be the largest eheim classic...I am going to take out all the media except the bioballs I think...and use that as a return.

Any ideas...pointers...recommend a good HOT overflow for me please!

Someone mentioned using a canister as a pump...and that just got me thinking. Plus this will give me more space than the planned AC110 mods that I was going to run on this tank...those are better for nano applications I think. (Coming soon? ...where did that credit card get to anyways?)

Thanks again. Lets open up some discussion on this, as I have no idea what I am doing.