DIY LED Question

[AquaDan]

I'm considering attempting a DIY using Rapidled solderless LEDS.

I have a 125 gallon tank, 72" x 18" x 20". I plan on doing fish with live rock and inverts for now and I would like to move into corals in a year or two.

How many LEDS would i need to purchase?

can anyone recommend a color scheme?

Thanks very much!

 

[cmantis]

I like to do 3:2 blue to white and for corals some UV and if you want a few red/green (place them close to each other flanked by blue).

 

[ifarmer]

I think if you contact Mike at Rapidled, he should give you a pretty good idea on how many LEDs you would need for your setup. what can be better than a free service?

From my experience, you should have some regular blue in addition to the Royal Blue, 1-2 green and 1-2 red as well.

You can eliminate on the number of drivers by wire the LED in parallel as oppose to series. (for example: Normally you would need 2 meanweld driver 60d-48 to run 28 Royal Blue led, with Parallel, you can run all 28 Royal Blue LED in just one single Meanweld driver 60-48p with a current being max at 650mA on each string). Make sure you use some sort of fuse or resister to project your LEDs

hope that helps

 

[qy7400]

You can eliminate on the number of drivers by wire the LED in parallel as oppose to series. (for example: Normally you would need 2 meanweld driver 60d-48 to run 28 Royal Blue led, with Parallel, you can run all 28 Royal Blue LED in just one single Meanweld driver 60-48p with a current being max at 650mA on each string). Make sure you use some sort of fuse or resister to project your LEDs

hope that helps

Just to clear this up a bit, you will be running 2 parallel strings with each string is still in series. You want a 1A fuse on each string to protect the LEDs, should the fuse pop on one string you'll send the full 1300mA to the other string, in most cases this will damage the blue LEDs.

 

[ifarmer]

If one fuse pop, the full 1.3mA go to the other string. Because the other string also is protected with a 1 mA fuse, the fuse will pop and you LED would be safe. This is only the case with older Cree Royal blue leds. newer one can run fine on 1500mA max. drive current without adjusting the current on the Meanwelll driver. If you have all new Cree Royal Blue LEDs, no need to use fuse or resistors on parallel wiring.
But good practice is you always want to have them for protection