Turns out the 3up LED stars are backordered, so I decided to switch things around and do 30 XP-E Royal Blues at 700mA with 40 degree potics, and 12 XM-L T5 warm whites at 2100mA with 60 degree optics. It will cost a bit more than I wanted to spend, and with the wierd numbers I might get some "disco" effect but ehh, I think it will be nicer overall.
How high are you planning on mounting the LEDs? 40 degree optics make a very tight beam, very noticeable in my tanks. I tried them at 14" above the water line there were still tight cones of colors from the optics. 60 degree was much better for blending the colors on my height. I think you have to be closer to 24" above the water line in order for 40 degree optics to spread out enough to blend good... but that is using XP-E/XP-G combo. I have not tried an XM-L setup myself so it could be different.
Some cone shaped light is ok, and honestly I am one of those people who tend to overthink things. At some point I just have to make an educated guess, go with it and work with it when it gets here.Originally Posted by Ace25
Currently I am planning 3 rows:
Front row: 15 Royal Blue XP-Es with 40 degree optics at 700mA
Middle row: 12 Neutral white XM-L T5s with 60 degree optics at 2100mA
Back row: 15 Royal Blue XP-Es with 40 degree optics at 700mA
But I might do 2 mixed rows, here are pictures of the 2 curent possibilities:
Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.
I'd do the three row thing.
What are the dimensions of your tank?
~48" left to right x ~13" front to back x ~21" deep standard 55 gallon.
If I did 2 rows 2" apart that would leave ~5" on each side front to back, so if I left 5" on each side left to right the rows would be ~38" long. 38" / 21 LEDs means they would be spaced ~1.8" apart. I think that sounds about right for avoiding the disco/spotlight effect.
Some trig gives me that a 2"x38" LED setup 22" away from a surface will spread light ~ 20" x 54". Considering that the majority of light from a LED is within the inside 50% of the cone, so I think 2 rows is starting to sound pretty close to what I want.
If I did 3 rows the LEDs would be spread almost 3" apart left to right, and I think that is too far apart. Although I guess I could make spotlight groupings... Instead of solid rows I could do 3 groups of LED lights. Each group could have 3 rows, 2 rows of 5 blue LEDs and 1 row of 4 white LEDs....
See what I mean about tending to overthink things...?
Ummmm.. I think you way over designed for a 55G. I run 24 LEDs, standard 12/12 XP-E/XP-G combo on my 60G and it is ok, although 36 LEDs is what I feel is ideal for a 55/60G tank.
Figure the normal ratio (and I feel works great also) of blue to white LEDs is 2:1. Each XM-L you have = 3 XP-Gs.
So the way I figure, for a standard 55G tank, 4 XM-Ls + 24 XR-E royal blues would probably be equivalent. Whites really get bright quickly and really wash out the royal blues.
Hmmmm well since I already had to change my order I dont want to make them refund cash.... I guess I could have them switch the XM-Ls to cool whites... Would you recommend that?
I guess either way I should have nice lighting when I upgrade to a 90 gallon tank.
The rule of thumb given to me was one 3 watt CREE LED per 15-20 square inches of tank surface area, up to 24" deep is the range of acceptable lighting, with 20 being acceptable for basic reefs and 15 being high light capable of growing anything. 615 square inches/20 ~ 31, 615 square inches/15 ~ 41, so a total of 31 LEDs should be acceptable for normal reef lighting, and 41 should be enough for anything, including SPSS and clams. Since I wanted a number divisible by 3 (originally planned 3 up LED discs) and I wanted to have plenty of light even 10 years from now, I went on the high end at 42. I guess I did not consider the fact that the XM-L driven at 2100mA should be 3x the light of the XP-G at 700mA....
EDIT: I guess if you consider XM-L T5s at 2100mA each worth about 3 XP-G at 700mA, the 12 XM-Ls alone are really enough light for a 55 gallon tank... and the 30 Royal Blue LEDs are just bonus light =)
True, if you like the freshwater look to the tank.Whites by themselves, even "cool whites" are still way to yellow for my preference. The royal blues really help balance out the whites for a saltwater tank, as well as provide a ton of usable light for the corals, sometimes too much. This is something I had to experience myself, and pretty much anyone who is going to DIY LEDs. I ordered a lot of different LEDs when I built my first light so I could understand how they all looked to me. After a couple weeks on my first light I ended up swapping out most of the warm whites I had for cool whites because it was way to warm. Even today, I only turn my whites up 50% and my blues up 100% on a 50/50 mix light, I think anything higher than 75% on whites with XP-Gs and it starts looking like a freshwater tank, under 10k coloring.
Since you say you are going to upgrade to a 90G down the road though, there is no reason not to build the light for a 90G and just run everything low power on the 55G. I still think you need way more blues to balance out that many neutral white XM-Ls, either more blues or just never run the XM-Ls more than 40% power.
Yea I realize the color on all warm whites would be way off, I was just saying the total amount of light was, by itself, sufficient. However I would never run that on a normal marine tank.
Currently I run a ghetto rigged t8 shoplight overdriven to about 110 watts with a Zoomed actinic bulb and a Zoomed 50/50 bulb, the whole thing (including bulbs) was less than 60 bucks and everything I have currently grows fine under it. The current color is not bad, but it could be a deeper blue and I would be fine with that too, however I dont want it any whiter.
Chances are I will arrange the LEDs in 3 groupings, after some drawing and math I kind of like that arangement. So it will be a center strip of the white lights with 60 degree optics, and strip on each side of Royal Blue lights with 40 degree optics. I will probably run the blues at max and the whites at a very low level.
That gives me room to add another strip of blues on each side in the future, when I upgrade tanks, and at that point I can just crank up the whites a bit more.
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