DIY LED ?s for a 125g Reef tank

Ok so like I said in my other post, I am looking at building a LED light kit. Here is what I have picked out:

48 Ultra Premium LED DIY Kit with Dimmable Drivers

Buying 2 of those for a 125. I am hoping to keep LPS, SPS, and Softies and maybe, eventually a clam, but that is a little ways down the road. I do have a couple of questions:

1. Would 96 LEDs be enough coverage with 60 degree lenses on them?
2. I am not sure how I should space them on the heatsinks and how many heatsinks I should get. I am assuming on a 6' tank I want 3 heatsinks, but I don't want to have to space the lights out so much that I get dark spots. The heatsinks I was looking at getting are:
5.9" x 16" Aluminum Heat Sink
and putting 24 leds per heatsink.

I believe I know the answer to the first question, I found a FAQ on ReefLEDLights.com that says they recommend 1 LED for every 12-15sq. in. of surface. So a 125 at (72 x 18) would need between 86 and 108 LEDs. They also said that 48 LEDs would be equivalent to a 400w Metal Halide. I just wanted to get others input before I went ahead and spent the money...

There's a couple of LED experts here (IMO) and they should be along shortly to help out. Sounds like you have a good solid plan though.

Are you going to build them before you get the tank?

Im still learning about LED's so im not much help but we have a few other threads going right now about them. Some of the more shmart people on here will chime in on this in a bit but for now ill link you over to a few of the other threads. Maybe you can pick up some info from them.

LED's for 180 gallon tank

New 150 startup

Originally Posted by rgrking

Are you going to build them before you get the tank?

This is a good question. I'd like to get going on them rather quickly, but I am afraid to jump the gun too early in case I end up not getting a 125 for some reason...

My thought process is that since I have some livestock that I am going to move out of my 55 and into a smaller tank (due to the phasing of the construction of an addition on my home and needing to replace the vinyl flooring under my 55), I would build at least 1 module (if I can go with 4 heatsinks) that I could hang over the 30tall that I am borrowing from my parents. For the 3 or 4 months (during construction and while waiting for the new tank to complete its cycle), I could run the 30 with a 24 LED light above it and I could actually use that to slowly acclimate the corals and fish to a stronger light.

So the sooner I get the LED kit the better, but not so soon that I have what I need to build a light kit for a 125g tank that I don't own... and something happen where I can't get that tank for some reason... haha.

I am building that same exact setup for my 150 right now. Two 24" heatsinks with 48 LED's each, and have had several people tell me they think that will be sufficient for keeping anything in my tank. The only additional thing I am doing is leaving space on my heatsinks for the addition of 12 xpg's for a high light noon effect. This is not something I will be adding immediately, but leaving myself open for the option down the road. I think 96 LED's should be more than enough for you tank. (Our tanks are just about the same dimensions)

Do you all think this setup would work if I wanted to leave the center open for XP-Gs? I am working on a 2nd design, just taking a little longer than I was expecting to play in google sketchup.
With this design, my thought was that I could just not put optics on the XP-G's when I decided to get them. The other LEDs would probably end up with 70degree optics.

The thing I don't really like about this design is that with 3 18" heatsinks over a 72" tank, that would leave 4.5 inches between the heatsinks, and with the LEDs so far off the edge of the heatsink, it would mean there is an 8.5 inch gap from the last LED on one heatsink to the first LED on the next heatsink.. I don't know if that is too much space.

I also wonder if the 2 rows of XP-E's being so close together and the big gap where the XP-Gs would go creates a real bright strip across the front and back of the tank, and a darker spot in the middle where the XP-Gs are absent, or just turned off...

for color blending that layout looks good. but for that size I would probably plan on the future adding more XPGs if you really wanted to PAR up.

optic selection will get affected by how high you want your fixture off the water. Read up on the other threads that Chris&barb posted up and look into the LEDs from reefLEDlights.com over rapids, he gets LEDs in a better spectrum for reefs. Plus compare the two owners, one of them is a reefer and the other guy isn't, guess which knows more.

Yea, I have actually been trying to compare back and forth and I thought Reefledlights.com was more expensive, but then I realized I was selecting the heatsink, with the kit so it actually works out pretty comparable.

Youre comparing the regular leds pricing to rapid?

Yea I think I was.. I dunno.. I have looked at so much LED stuff over the last week or so that it is all blurring into one big LED google search result... haha..

So do you think that if I wanted to supplement a 96 LED light kit with an extra 12 XP-Gs to give a a "high noon" effect, that would be enough, or should I be going for more XP-Gs?

Nah, its all about playing the spectrums. Use the xpg as high noon. Btw I did the same as you on my four footer except I added 12 more blues cause I got stuck on numbers and wanted 72 b to 36 w and then + 12 for the the xpg.
I blame my ocd on even numbers. Im selling my fixture when I get the new tank and doing all 18" heatsinks for a modular look

So then I should probably be looking to make space for more XP-Gs on each heatsink then? I don't think I can squeeze them much closer together, unless I do a strip right down the middle and do 8 instead of 4... I was hoping really to disperse them through the entire heat sink, sort of like this:



But if 4 per heat sink isn't going to be enough to make a difference I may have to go back to my first design and just make room for 8 per heatsink...

If I do that and never add them, that isn't going to create a dark spot down the center of the tank is it? Where there is a large gap and no LEDs?

Oh and, I really like the idea of the 18" heat sinks. Going with three I feel like I might get a little more control over the lighting. I am just trying to also decide whether I want to add 2 more drivers so that I can dim the center section separately from the outside two, or if I just want to wire it so that it is controlled half and half with the other 2 sections.. I haven't figured that part out just yet.. hah

Ok, Ok, last one.. for tonight.. Here is the 3rd one I drew up. This one has 8 slots for XP-Gs in a future setup. So to start, the yellow colored LEDs will not be in place, so I alternated the blue and white ignoring the slots that have the yellow colored LEDs.

wow looks like it's going to be a nice setup! hit the submit order button!@!@!!!!! Just do it1!!!!

Originally Posted by rgrking

wow looks like it's going to be a nice setup! hit the submit order button!@!@!!!!! Just do it1!!!!

+1, after I saw the below post I am excited to see your build.

Originally Posted by Ihuntinde

Ok, Ok, last one.. for tonight.. Here is the 3rd one I drew up. This one has 8 slots for XP-Gs in a future setup. So to start, the yellow colored LEDs will not be in place, so I alternated the blue and white ignoring the slots that have the yellow colored LEDs.

if you go the extra drivers route do the inventronics, they are smaller and no tuning necessary! (comparing up to the 60-48d)

The 60-48ds can run parallel strings but the inventronics cannot. the inventronics can run up to 15 LEDs.

Originally Posted by FiReBReTHa

if you go the extra drivers route do the inventronics, they are smaller and no tuning necessary! (comparing up to the 60-48d)

The 60-48ds can run parallel strings but the inventronics cannot. the inventronics can run up to 15 LEDs.

The problem is, each heatsink is going to have 16 of each color, so I'd still have to have 4 drivers for each heatsink, even with the Inventronics since it can only handle 15. That being said, is there a difference in quality between the meanwell and the inventronics, or any advantage/disadvantage between the two?

Other than the fact that the meanwell's look to be on indefinite backorder. The website says "ELN 60-48D…Out of Stock ship date undertimened…" heh..

BTW, thanks a lot for the help. I am pretty much ready to order, just making sure I get the right stuff.

The inventronics are smaller
inv no tuning
inv has 10v out put for putting a manual dimmer
minmum 5 leds max 15

Meanwell must be tuned with digital multimeter
requires 0-10v source to function
min 4 leds max 12 (unless u do paralell strings then 24 lds)


My vote goea to the inventronics, word on the street is they run cleaner too

Hmm.. I'll have to look into those. At this point, I am planning on adding a controller of some sort, whether its the Apex or the Reefkeeper, I am not sure. I know on the larger Inventronics, it does not mention the RK controller as compatible... Not sure if that is the case for the smaller one or not.

Thanks for the info. Gonna have to do a little more research before I buy now.

Originally Posted by Ihuntinde

Hmm.. I'll have to look into those. At this point, I am planning on adding a controller of some sort, whether its the Apex or the Reefkeeper, I am not sure. I know on the larger Inventronics, it does not mention the RK controller as compatible... Not sure if that is the case for the smaller one or not.

Thanks for the info. Gonna have to do a little more research before I buy now.

Yea they are all the same with the 0-10v input. RKeeper and APex both output 0-10v with their modules for control.

post up here on Reef Geeks and all of us here will help out.