DIY LED kits

[Enigma84]

Give me a relative size if you can. I.e. how many gallons you system is, to what size scrubber. What it's lit with (total power and colour) and whether it's lit both sides. Does it eliminate the need for phosphate removing chemicals?

That should give me a good idea. I worked it out from 81 us gallon system I needed minimum 8x10" lit both sides with 40w cfl both sides. From what you have here, led power is just under half.
Thanks

[Floyd R Turbo]

You seem to be stuck on sizing the screen to the size of the tank. You need to abandon this concept completely. You only need to size the screen according to how much you plan to feed. If you end up feeding more, then you can just increase the size of the screen. From my experience most people top out at around 2 cubes/day and that is plenty of food for most tanks, unless you pack the tanks with corals and fish and feed a ton. If you are starting this tank from scratch, it will be a while before you go past 2 cubes/day so that size will do you very well for quite a while.

As far as LED power, since the spectrum is specific to the algae, you can get away with a lot less overall wattage because you are not wasting bandwidth. Right now it seems generally accepted that you can use half the total rated wattage, so if you would normally need a 23W CFL then you would only need 4 3W LEDs and would actually only run them at 2W (700mA) or at least somewhere in that ballpark.

[kerry]

Gallons makes no difference, its the amount of food you feed per day. Example: you would need a 3"x4" (= 12") for one cube of food per day and lit with 6 watts CFL per side( see here:http://algaescrubber.net/forums/show...ing-guidelines).
I only run scrubbers on my tanks and nothing more.

[Enigma84]

Ok. Thanks guys for the advice. I have been planning and day dreaming about this tank for two and a half years since i broke down my last 5 ft one. (very sad i know). Back then i had looked into the idea of a turf scrubber, but i had made all the sump and it was just too much hassle to change. Hence i have been thinking of ideas and plans ever since. Thank you for your help and advice. I shall do some calculations, and start ordering.
Ben

[joelespinoza]

12x12 is HUGE anymore. 12 sq in of screen per cube per day, generally lit by 2 or 3 3W 660nm reds on each side. I'm going to be building 2 cube/day scrubbers with 6 3W 660s per side for reference

Hmmmm yea, I should probably think about resizing my 10.5 x 26" scrubber...... =)