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Diy Led advice ???

molabecirovic

molabecirovic

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Hi everyone

I am in the process of changing my Led setup and just looking for some feedback from you guys.
I been using a diy led kit from rapidled's for the past few years and its been working fine but I do get some shaded spots under the two black tank supports in the middle of the tank so i was thinking of adding two more fixtures in a 30'-45' angle to shoot some light in those sections ... in the same time I decided to add more royal blues to the existing and the new fixtures. I heard that UV, red and green would be a good add-on so adding few of those too.
What do you think about the existing and proposed? Any advice?

Attached files /attachments/sites/default/files/Led Existing1.jpg /attachments/sites/default/files/Led Plan 1.jpg
 
Adding the UV sounds great.

Adding the red is nice for looks. I did it. But make sure it is controllable separately. It does not take much,
and if you over-do it, it can encourage algae growth.

The 45 degree angle mounting on the other hand does not sound that great.
The problem is that the higher the angle of the light relative to the water, the more reflects.
For water, the "critical angle of incidence" is 48.6 degrees.
So straight down, all the light goes into the water.
As the angle gets higher, less light goes in, more is reflected.
At a 48.6 degree angle, ZERO light goes into the water, and 100% is reflected.
So if your lights are already at 45 degrees, a lot of the light will simply be reflected away.
 
rygh said:
Adding the UV sounds great.

Adding the red is nice for looks. I did it. But make sure it is controllable separately. It does not take much,
and if you over-do it, it can encourage algae growth.

The 45 degree angle mounting on the other hand does not sound that great.
The problem is that the higher the angle of the light relative to the water, the more reflects.
For water, the "critical angle of incidence" is 48.6 degrees.
So straight down, all the light goes into the water.
As the angle gets higher, less light goes in, more is reflected.
At a 48.6 degree angle, ZERO light goes into the water, and 100% is reflected.
So if your lights are already at 45 degrees, a lot of the light will simply be reflected away.
Click to expand...



Thanks for the info, never heard about it before but in that case I need a new plan :( ... another option I thought about is lowering the lights closer to the water while adding 80' lenses to get a wider spread from the LED's. what would you think would be the closest the LED's could go from the water?

thanks on the comments
Becho
 
You could get rid of your shaded spot by having your leds closer to the surface such that cones of line don't intersect your brace... or you could just live with it.. put some zoas or other corals that do ok in lower light there :D

As to the reds and greens, I'm not a big fan of them, your white LEDs have more than enough green in their spectrum, and IMO enough red too. I would go with a neutral or warm white LED over a red LED any day of the week. If you do decide to go with red and green it's one of those things that you should put them on separate channels, so that you can adjust the color of them independent of the other channels, very often you'll not realize how much you're over saturating your colors, and have a light that's really red and green.
 
sfsuphysics said:
You could get rid of your shaded spot by having your leds closer to the surface such that cones of line don't intersect your brace... or you could just live with it.. put some zoas or other corals that do ok in lower light there :D

As to the reds and greens, I'm not a big fan of them, your white LEDs have more than enough green in their spectrum, and IMO enough red too. I would go with a neutral or warm white LED over a red LED any day of the week. If you do decide to go with red and green it's one of those things that you should put them on separate channels, so that you can adjust the color of them independent of the other channels, very often you'll not realize how much you're over saturating your colors, and have a light that's really red and green.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I don't really see a reason to adding red or green besides looks. White covers those two colors already.
 
sfsuphysics said:
You could get rid of your shaded spot by having your leds closer to the surface such that cones of line don't intersect your brace... or you could just live with it.. put some zoas or other corals that do ok in lower light there :D

As to the reds and greens, I'm not a big fan of them, your white LEDs have more than enough green in their spectrum, and IMO enough red too. I would go with a neutral or warm white LED over a red LED any day of the week. If you do decide to go with red and green it's one of those things that you should put them on separate channels, so that you can adjust the color of them independent of the other channels, very often you'll not realize how much you're over saturating your colors, and have a light that's really red and green.
Click to expand...
sfsuphysics said:
You could get rid of your shaded spot by having your leds closer to the surface such that cones of line don't intersect your brace... or you could just live with it.. put some zoas or other corals that do ok in lower light there :D

As to the reds and greens, I'm not a big fan of them, your white LEDs have more than enough green in their spectrum, and IMO enough red too. I would go with a neutral or warm white LED over a red LED any day of the week. If you do decide to go with red and green it's one of those things that you should put them on separate channels, so that you can adjust the color of them independent of the other channels, very often you'll not realize how much you're over saturating your colors, and have a light that's really red and green.
Click to expand...



Is there a downfall in having the Led's closer to the water? ... mine are at 11'' from the water at the moment and to get a wider spread I should have them at about half of that.
I am taking of the reds and greens also and replacing them with 5w warm whites.

New plan

Attached files /attachments/sites/default/files/Led new plan 1.jpg
 
molabecirovic said:
Is there a downfall in having the Led's closer to the water? ... mine are at 11'' from the water at the moment and to get a wider spread I should have them at about half of that.
I am taking of the reds and greens also and replacing them with 5w warm whites.

New plan
Click to expand...
They could get more "disco" like with the patterns, depending upon how tight your optics are and how turbulent the surface of your water is.

I would deal with the shadow myself, I mean it's not like it's completely devoid of light, just a little less bright.
 
molabecirovic said:
rygh said:
Adding the UV sounds great.

Adding the red is nice for looks. I did it. But make sure it is controllable separately. It does not take much,
and if you over-do it, it can encourage algae growth.

The 45 degree angle mounting on the other hand does not sound that great.
The problem is that the higher the angle of the light relative to the water, the more reflects.
For water, the "critical angle of incidence" is 48.6 degrees.
So straight down, all the light goes into the water.
As the angle gets higher, less light goes in, more is reflected.
At a 48.6 degree angle, ZERO light goes into the water, and 100% is reflected.
So if your lights are already at 45 degrees, a lot of the light will simply be reflected away.
Click to expand...



Thanks for the info, never heard about it before but in that case I need a new plan :( ... another option I thought about is lowering the lights closer to the water while adding 80' lenses to get a wider spread from the LED's. what would you think would be the closest the LED's could go from the water?

thanks on the comments
Becho
Click to expand...

Mine are about 2 inches off the water. But I do not have optics. (120 deg)
I think you cab do the dame with 80-deg lenses, but not sure.
If you do that with tight optics, you will just end up with spotlights on the bottom. - Don't!
 
Regarding Red/Green:
I do think that the "Cool White" LEDs do need supplementation.
But going to neutral white is probably a lot better way to deal with it.
Especially if you add a near UV violet, since that can fool your eye a bit, and add red.
(If I were to build mine over, I would do it that way)

I am not so sure about warm white though. It can end up looking rather yellow if you are not careful.
Depends on the exact LED.
 
I agree, Cool white seems like a silly choice for an LED in a multi-color fixture, remember white LEDs are literally royal blue LEDs with phosphor coatings to give it those other wavelengths, they'll all have that royal blue "450(ish)nm" spike, then the "white hump" which adds in all the other colors to get your spectrum of choice. BTW, Cree XT-E whites (neutral and warm) are considerably warmer than their older XP-G whites, meaning they have more reds/yellows/greens in them, so if you go that route you really don't need to go with adding those extra colors.
 
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