Starting over kinda (with LED's)

[Nazrac]

Well I lost my pump on my skimmer so my scrubber pump got robbed to run the skimmer after only around a week of running. Things were looking pretty good but I want to do it better this time. Before it was a 20*13 singel sided with 2x23w cfl scrubber. But now I am going to just break out the guns and go all out. I know how to work with acrylic and have all the tools to do it. so that said I am sure I can handle the body. The next thing is lighting. I was thinking LED's especially with how cheap you can get them now. So my thoughts were:
1. would 660nm leds be good enough for the red
2. Is there any benefit to adding royal blues or any blues for that matter
3. Warm white to add the slight blue and some other red wavelengths
4. How many 3W led's
5 any practicle reason for optics
I am going to ditch the fuge and use the tank as my outer housing perhaps ditching the acrylic build all together and just making sealed light boxes with just air in and out the only openings (led's dont need replacing but might need that if they are cheap.) The real odd thing is that reds have a significantly lower voltage than blues and whites for 700ma. So I need to figure out the ratio of red to whatever then plan my circuit accordingly. I will be using a meanwell eln-60-48 with 14 or so in series and two parrallel (ballanced) paths. The way I will wire it if one goes bad it will only cook one other. That driver does 48VDC with 1.3A adjustable so I will probably set it at 600ma just to prolong the live and lower the temps alittle bit. I will run the same screen but 20" being the width.

[Nazrac]

After doing some math I think I would use 22 Reds and 10 Royal Blues (11 Reds and 5 Blues per side and Series Path) other options are 28 Reds and 6 Blues (14 Reds and 3 blues Per side and series Path) or 24 Reds and 8 Blues (12 reds and 4 blues per side)

[kerry]

I have a 660 red set-up going on my 10G nano. Its a small screen 2.75x6.75 and it one sided horizontal. With the CFL it did OK, 1-2 cubes a day with no real nutrient spikes. I had four 3W 660's at 2" away with lens's. This burned the algae so bad the screed was white, like new in focus areas. So as of Saturday I have no lens's on them and we are trying 2" away again. So far I have algae going and covering about 90%+ of the screen already. There is a lot of talk about other colors and what works and what is better or worse. The one thing everyone seemed to agree on was the 660's so I went with these seeing everyone, well from what I read, used the 660's. So far its working great. I will post pics this weekend or the next. I am rebuilding my 150G FW scrubber to a dual screen this week and weekend so I may not get to the led pics.

[rygh]

My opinion:

> 1. would 660nm leds be good enough for the red
Yes.

> 2. Is there any benefit to adding royal blues or any blues for that matter
If you add a lot of warm whites, then no, since there is lot of blue in those.
Otherwise a little helps.

> 3. Warm white to add the slight blue and some other red wavelengths
Good.

> 4. How many 3W led's
Hmm, not really the correct question.
What matters is the wattage you use. (Driver current * forward voltage).
It is unlikely you will run a 3W at the full 3W if using 1.3A/2.
My feelings - a good number is real LED wattage = 1/2 the normal CFL requirement.

>5. any practicle reason for optics
Normal optics, no, and they might make spotting problems worse.
You need something to spread around the light, not focus it.

[Nazrac]

So would it be better to run the few Blues 445nm or warm whites? I was thinking optics were bad but wanted confirmantion. 3w leds hardly ever run 3 watts so you are correct but the norm would be around 2.5 watts. But yes I am planning 650ma so around 2.3 give or take watts. But 60 watts is what i was thinking more than that would be an easy epansion reclaiming cost from going overboard is a harder feat to manage but expansion is easy.

[rygh]

>So would it be better to run the few Blues 445nm or warm whites?
I don't think anyone has done enough testing to know for sure.
My personal preference is something like (2 red, 1 blue, 1 warm white) * N
Others have different opinions.
I have tried quite a few things, and most seem about the same. The only thing that I can
truly confirm as bad is 2 royal blue + 1 cool white. (Experimented with my main tank cluster for fun)

[Ace25]

I see nothing wrong with the 2 red/1 blue/1 warm white combo.. I am sure it works fine.

As of last weekend I am now running 6x 660nm reds and 1x 455nm royal blue per side, 14 LEDs total on a meanwell 700mA constant current driver. I will know on sunday if I see any difference by using that combo.

[Nazrac]

Well how did that last combo work out?