My home made LEDs, advice/help needed

O

opy01

Ok so I macde an LED hood for my BC29 well over a year ago. 26 3W Cree XRE LEDs with 40 degree optics about 2-2.5" apart run by 2 ELN-60-48D drivers, 13 royal blue on one driver and 13 white on the other. They are all running at 100%. I dont know the par but they are friggin bright and my coral have incredible color and growth... then again so does my algae [smilie=rofl.gif] .

Here is my issue, I am building LEDs for my 120G 6' tank (my first large tank). I have two 3' heatsinks that I will be putting 68 3W Cree XPE LEDs on each with 4 rows of LEDs ~2" spacing and 3" between rows. On the first heatsink I have the middle 48 LEDs installed and running. I had them at 100% since they are higher than my BC29 LEDs thinking they would give off about the same light or less. I almost lost several coral before I finally got the whites down to about 50% and the blues are at 75%. I have growth and color in several frags now but not near the polyp extension as in my BC29. I have a Tunze 6055 pointed towards them so I know they have nice flow so for the life of me I can't figure out why I cant get the polyp extension.

My BC29 has an upgraded pump, a sump with a nice return pump and a K-nano so the flow is awesome and I have incredible P.E.. I had a BC14 with MH lighting, an upgraded pump plus a k-nano and the P.E. in that tank was incredible too.

I am going to order a PAR meter to see what the difference is in the tank as far as light. I have a kalk reactor set up on a Ph probe and I dose B-Ionic and the magnesium and calcium levels are in the proper range (plus I am getting nice SPS and LPS growth, just barely any P.E.). Is there anything else I should check?
 
Actually that may be it, thanks for the link! My BC29 does have some algae so maybe it is an issue with that. My 120 has a massive skimmer and the coral has super nice color. In fact I have a montipora spongodes that is greenish with large brown polyps in my BC29. In the 120 it is super bright green with small poylps. The color is incredible in this tank so I guess I will get used to it. Now to get my BC29 in better shape [smilie=dull.gif] .

I also just figured out the Cree XP LEDs are alot brighter than the XR LEDs. That would explain why the BC29 is at 100% and these needed to be turned down.
 
How deep is your tank? Are you running optics now? I put 12 crees on my bc 14 with no optics but i did use them on my 130 frag tank. Algae is only a result of the lights if you got a bad led, you can dim them down and put on suglass and look at the led itself. If its not an even light or there is a "hotspot" that could throw the spectrum into an algae growing range.
 
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