Converted from twist CFL to LED

[wardda]

Hello,

I have an existing scrubber that was running as a waterfall scrubber with 4x23w twist CFL, 2 on each side. Lights were about 4" away, high flow, lights on 18 hours a day. I was getting pretty good growth, but I was getting sick of replacing them every 3 months and I was also getting hair algae outbreaks in my display since I recently upgraded my display tanks LED's.

I have now replaced the twist CFL's on my ATS with a 10x6" heat sink on each side of the scrubber. The heat sinks have 13 LED's on each, 12 deep red, and 1 royal blue. I have them on a dimmer so I can change the brightness. The heat sinks are also 4" from the screen.

I'm wondering what amp level I should be running the LED's at and how long each day I should be running them. I currently have them at max, so almost 700mA running 9 hours a day. So half as long as what I was running the twist CFL's.

Is this a good starting point or am I pumping too much intensity at the algae?

Looking for any advice, and also what I should expect as far as growth, I'm using the same screen that I was using with the CFL's so it is seeded.

Thanks,

[SantaMonica]

Well you had about 100 watts of CFL, so about 50 watts of LED is a good start. This would mean that your 26 total LEDs would be about 2 watts each. They probably, however, are either 1w or 3w each, correct?

[wardda]

You are correct, they are 3w LED's. Philips Rebel ES 660nm Deep Red and CREE XT-E Royal Blue.

[SantaMonica]

I would not drive them at 700; do 500 instead. and start with 12 hours, and see how it looks in a week.

[wardda]

Sounds good, I'll give that a try and let you know what I see.