Would this be a good DIY LED fixture???

[Jkedra]

Ok, so I was leaving home depot today, and I came across something very interesting. It was the new LED PAR bulbs from Phillips. They have different types with different wattages and etc. Is it possible to do a DIY project with these types of bulbs? If so, what kind of wattage and how many of these PAR bulbs would I need for my 55 gallon mixed reef? And would it be ok if the bulbs were all white (no actinic)? I couldn't find the blue PAR bulbs.

These are some of the PARs there are. Which ones would I need and how many?

http://www.ecat.lighting.philips.co...v=false&merchDisplayName=LED-Lighting-Systems

(these are not all the options there are I seen many different brands at home depot that make these LED lamps...Its just an example of what I'm talking about)

My current light fixture is Nova Extreme T5 4 bulb and I really wanna upgrade to LEDs

 

[Anthony.Luciano710]

lol you have a lot to learn if you want to use 4 watt bulbs with 3,000k haha you need reef PAR bulbs such as the once sold on rapidled.com for your tank you would need 8 of the 7 led 21 watt PAR bulbs with 60-80 degree optics. and that will be sufficient for your tank. they come with both blue and white leds so you wont need a separate light for each color. here is a link http://www.rapidled.com/servlet/the-141/(New)-7-LED-PAR38/Detail

 

[Jkedra]

obviously I posted a link for DIFFERENT TYPES OF BULBS and asked which ones I need. LOL thats why I'm asking if this is ok. You need to learn some more stuff on LEDs yourself, your not even done with the project yet.

 

[Jkedra]

Anyways...back to topic

 

[bartmalave]

i might be getting a shipment next month of 7000 to 9000k 3w led and 460 blue leds if interested keep in touch

 

[Raul]

Dude two people have told you those bulbs are no good.. Ill be the third... those home depot leds are no good for your reef. Save up and get a unit that has a 3 foot spread. It will look better than a bunch of bulbs anyway.

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

It all comes down to color temperature, the angle of the light, and the economics.

In reefing we like much whiter/bluer look, so 4200K is very yellow to us. Even comparing to daylight at 5500K/65000K, it's very yellow. You won't like it. Can it keep coral? With sufficient amount, I guess so. For about 1 1/2 years, I have kept a 90G coral holding tank with 3500K 96W LED bars. But they are too yellow that I don't even know what color the coral is supposed to be. LOL

Without the lens to focus the light, a lot of the light energy is wasted to the outside of your tank unless you have a very wide tank and a very centralized light source. However, this arrangement brings two problems, (1)the dead center of the light soruce becomes very bright while the the outskirt is not. The cover is very uneven. Therefore, bulbs with narrow lens and evenly distributed bulbs over the tank is preferred way to do reef tank. (2)Economics, without the lens, you have to compensate the wasted light that spilled out of the tank by adding more bulbs, this drastically increase your cost. Keep in mind, the sockets for the bulbs are expensive too.

Economics again. If they are cheap enough, it could be an altrenative for the none viewing portion of your system like the fuge. BTW, can you give an example how much a bulb costed in HomeDepot in relation with wattage.

 

[Anthony.Luciano710]

or another good idea is to take apart your nova extreme and put a big heat sink in it with fans and make that into an led fixture with the leds on a star instead of those PAR bulbs. it will be much cheaper while more efficient at the same time.

 

[noobzy]

From what I understand, the lamps that you'd get at HD are of a different color temperature (hue) than we tend to use for reefs. They are closer to plant needs (6,500k) and farther from coral needs (10 - 20,000k).

 

[batt600]

obviously I posted a link for DIFFERENT TYPES OF BULBS and asked which ones I need. LOL thats why I'm asking if this is ok. You need to learn some more stuff on LEDs yourself, your not even done with the project yet.

You can not us those lights thats what were telling you we saw the page and none of them will work lets move on please.

 

[Jkedra]

like I said that was an example. So what kind of par bulbs would I need?

 

[TimberTDI]

Try looking here for the PAR bulbs you need. And yes it was posted in the second post.:tired:

 

[Anthony.Luciano710]

yea Jakub just get the leds we linked you to. you will love them mine came out amazing i fired them up for the first time 10 minutes ago... words cant explain it, its just truly amazing. if you go with the ones we linked you with theres no going wrong!

 

[Jkedra]

yea I know LEDs are great. My dad and I bought 6 boxes of the phillips LEDs for our house upstate. They are soooo bright. It's awsome.

 

[ryangrieder]

yea I know LEDs are great. My dad and I bought 6 boxes of the phillips LEDs for our house upstate. They are soooo bright. It's awsome.

A house with all LEDs....that has to be annoying no? Who wants to wear sunglasses inside?





I wear my sunnnnnnnnnglasses at night....

 

[TimberTDI]

yea I know LEDs are great. My dad and I bought 6 boxes of the phillips LEDs for our house upstate. They are soooo bright. It's awsome.

Jus curious because I also replaced a lot of my MR16 and GU10 halogens with phillips leds. Did it not cross your mind that the yellow color they emit would not be good for a reef?

A house with all LEDs....that has to be annoying no? Who wants to wear sunglasses inside?

Ryan,

Phillips has done and excellent job of replicating the color of an incandescent bulb. It's a perfect warm natural color. I have no idea how they were able to get such a natural color out of an led.

 

[Jkedra]

Exactly. They have different types of bulbs and they don't all emit that yellow color. Next time when you guys go to home depot, stop by the lighting and check them out. They have a nice demo, where they have about 6 different bulbs laid out on the same color floor. Each bulb emits different colors, depending on your needs including bright white, daylight, softwhite, etc.

And for the house, from floor to ceiling is very high so it just seems like alot,but it's just fine.

 

[Anthony.Luciano710]

dont wanna start trouble again but the bright very crisp white you were looking at will still look like the white you see in reef lights but its only 5500k you cant really tell the difference between 5500 and 1000 without having them side by side but the corals will benefit from the higher kelvin rating and algae grows on that 5500k color scale thats y those lights are usually used over a fuge filled with macro algae.

Exactly. They have different types of bulbs and they don't all emit that yellow color. Next time when you guys go to home depot, stop by the lighting and check them out. They have a nice demo, where they have about 6 different bulbs laid out on the same color floor. Each bulb emits different colors, depending on your needs including bright white, daylight, softwhite, etc.

And for the house, from floor to ceiling is very high so it just seems like alot,but it's just fine.

 

[Jkedra]

I wasn't talking about the reef there. Was talking to TimberTDI about the bulbs in a house.