LED Setup Ideas and Opinions Needed

L

ldreefer

Alright so I am leaning towards LED's for my new 120 gallon setup and I need some input on what to go with.

What setup color wise? (how many blues, whites, reds, violets?)

What size heat sink should I get? The kit comes with 60 degree optics if that helps.

I'm going with the 72 LED kit from Aquastyle. I know there are better kits, but this one is the only one I can afford.
 
Are you going to grow corals. If so you will need more leds. I did 24 blue 24 white 14ks and to me it seems a little on the blue side. I have had people tell me that they like theirs bluer. I have thought about adding a couple reds to help even out that spectrum.
 
The aquastyle leds put out 1/3rd less par, so you're planning to run the equivalent of a 48 led kit. That would be too few for sps on a 75, but on a 120... you might not be able to keep lps up high... softies & polyps should be fine. You'll also need to leave off the optics to keep from spotlighting.

As long as you know it's very little light and stock your corals accordingly you'll be fine. Just know that you're not planning for enough light to keep many things.
 
People talk about the aquastyle kit like its bad. I can agree they aren't as powerful as Cree LEDs. But I have noticed nothing but stellar growth and color from mine. I have 24 over a NanoCube. I only keep 1 piece of SPS right now, a green birdsnest. It has grown at least 25% in a month and a half.
 
Not talking about them like they're bad at all. Just realize that you shouldn't compare prices against another 72 led kit. Compare against a 48 led kit because that's what it's equivalent to when measured with a par meter. Also consider the energy savings of running 1/3rd less watts 10 hours a day. I did all of the research before purchasing, and this is how I made my decision. Also realize he is looking to run 3 times the leds that you are on a system that's 5 times larger.
 
I'm with matt on this one. I really like my aquastyle kit on my nano but I would go cree for a big kit. The efficiency doesn't make a big difference on a small kit but gets exponentially worse the more lights you add.
 
You both make very valid points. I guess if I was to do a retrofit or upgrade to a larger system, then I probably wouldn't run Bridgelux. If you consider the loss of efficiency on a larger vs smaller tank then the bridgelux LEDs don't make sense.
 
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