Hello Everyone, New to the Forums here. Looking for some people who have had experience with running LED's in their Nanos.... My tank is currently about 6 months old right now, I have a mix of things growing in it now. I converted mine about 2 months ago and just recently put 60 degree optics on. I'm running 12 Cree XPG Cool Whites with 12 Cree Royal Blues on two seperate channels controlled by a Typhoon (Arduino based) controller that allows fade from roughly 25% intensity (where the optics drop out) to anywhere up to full intensity. I currently have a few frogspawn heads and 3 or 4 different SPS, and a number of zoanthids, palys, acans, favia and a few softies. Prior to placing optics in, Tank seemed much brighter, Im assuming because the light was going everywhere but down and bouncing all over the place. Im currently running the LEDS at about 90% but I fear this may be overkill with the optics installed. SPS seems to be staying alive just fine, but not seeing much if any growth over the past month or so that they've been in there, I suspect water quality issues or tank maturity to be the limiting factor with SPS though my cheap test kits still keep coming back with no traces of phospates/nitrates/ammonia, and my alk stays between 8-10 dkh, calcium hovers around 400. Zoas and palys are growing much faster than with the PCs, however I have only had a month or so to experiment with the PC's before swapping them out. Just curious if anyone here has had any other positive or negative experiences running LEDs in their nanos, particularly because the diodes are placed so close to the water line. I'd also be willing to offer any one some advice if they are planning to do a retrofit themselves, as I see a few things I would have gone back and done differently.
EDIT: 24 gallon JBJ Nano Cube
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NANO LED Retro Fit
- Thread starter The Wrong Reefer
- Start date
First, what drivers are you using?
Welcome to the club.
I was running an AI sol blue over a 30g tank for about a year and had very good success with it. I was actually running it at 100% for most of the time which is pretty unheard of though I was switching over from a 250w MH pendant so they were used to bright lighting. Sounds like you went from PCs straight to LEDs which is a big jump. I went from T5s to Leds and had some issues. You really need to start the intensity very low (30%) or so and ramp up from there maybe 5% a week or you will get the light shock and bleach out the corals. Over time your corals will look awesome but you really need to give them time to adjust and properly. How high do you have them hung above the tank?
I was running an AI sol blue over a 30g tank for about a year and had very good success with it. I was actually running it at 100% for most of the time which is pretty unheard of though I was switching over from a 250w MH pendant so they were used to bright lighting. Sounds like you went from PCs straight to LEDs which is a big jump. I went from T5s to Leds and had some issues. You really need to start the intensity very low (30%) or so and ramp up from there maybe 5% a week or you will get the light shock and bleach out the corals. Over time your corals will look awesome but you really need to give them time to adjust and properly. How high do you have them hung above the tank?
We added a maxspect 60 watt to our 29 bio cube. We left the moonlights in original to the hood. Since the maxspect
has 1 power cord we added 2 stunner strips for dawn to dusk affect. Softies LPS and SPS and everything is doing great.
has 1 power cord we added 2 stunner strips for dawn to dusk affect. Softies LPS and SPS and everything is doing great.
I was going to suggest Nanotuners / Nanocustoms.com. Sadly they had to close up shop in October of last year. They had great diy kits specifically for upgrading to leds in nanos and even hard to get spare parts for original equipment (like circuit boards for the fans, power modules, bulbs, etc.). They will be missed for sure.
But, as Xavier said, aquastyleonline.com is a good site for Bridgelux LED's, or you can try rapidled.com or reefledlights.com for Cree bulbs.
But, as Xavier said, aquastyleonline.com is a good site for Bridgelux LED's, or you can try rapidled.com or reefledlights.com for Cree bulbs.
I went with LEDsupply.com, I doubt they're the cheapest, but the sales rep I talked to on the phone knew exactly what I was doing the second I started asking questions and was extremely knowledgeable. I ended up going through them just b/c I had gotten so much help from him. Total cost was somewhere under 300 I think, not including the typhoon controller and the optics which I later bought. If anyone's interested I can search my gmail account for the invoices of exactly what I spent and what I got. The drivers were 1400 buck blocks, each driver runs 12 LEDs. They're roughly an inch or so above the water line, which worries me. theres some spot lighting effect in the upper 3 inches or so of the tank, but beyond that, the colors mix very well. Going back, I would have spaced them closer... I will probably be looking into wider optics in the future, but I'm still hearing it from the wife with all the money I just spent on this tank, lol. My acans, LPS, Palys, Montis all seem to LOVE the LEDs, my zoas are now battling a fungal infection or something which is another topic for another thread... Havent seen much on the few Acros I got, but like I said, its a pretty young tank and I don't think Im really ready for SPS yet. So, does anyone have any suggestions for a Light schedule with high powered LEDs, I really am trying to do this the right way...
In Nanos, lenses are usually not required. When you get into tanks that are 18" and deeper, that is when lenses become important. There might be another case to use them but I'll get into that a little later.
I didn't know they made BuckPucks higher than 1000mA, I use Meanwell drivers myself, but the problem I see is that if you are using 1400mA pucks and Cree LEDs, the max drive current on the royal blue LEDs is 1000mA. Whites are 1500mA max so they are ok. If you run the blues higher than 1000 you can shorten their life or worse, burn them out. Does your controller have two outputs, one for blue and one for white? When you say you are at 90% is that whites / blues or both?
The other thing that doesn't seem right is the 25% cut off. I know my Meanwell drivers work 0-10V and 10% (or 1V) is the cut off. BuckPucks work 0-5V and 25% of only 5 volts seems like a lot to me and a limited window for adjustability. Can you measure the output current of the controller and see at how volts the cut off is and also make sure the max output is 5V and not 10V like it is for the meanwells.
I have a 12x Cree 3W 50/50 mix setup inside a 24" old power compact fixture. The fixture I had over a 20L frag tank and it was tough to find a balance of keeping some SPS from browning out while some SPS and LPS bleached if I went higher than 40%. At that point I had to use strategic coral placement and 70 degree optics on the middle LEDs to try and keep everyone happy.
I've been waiting forever for them to fix the little CNC machine at work. As soon as it's fixed I'll take the heatsink out of the PC fixture and machine a pocket in the fins for the fan and drill some mounting holes. The heatsink is 9" and will be a perfect fit inside the hood of my BioCube 8 that I now use as a QT tank.
I didn't know they made BuckPucks higher than 1000mA, I use Meanwell drivers myself, but the problem I see is that if you are using 1400mA pucks and Cree LEDs, the max drive current on the royal blue LEDs is 1000mA. Whites are 1500mA max so they are ok. If you run the blues higher than 1000 you can shorten their life or worse, burn them out. Does your controller have two outputs, one for blue and one for white? When you say you are at 90% is that whites / blues or both?
The other thing that doesn't seem right is the 25% cut off. I know my Meanwell drivers work 0-10V and 10% (or 1V) is the cut off. BuckPucks work 0-5V and 25% of only 5 volts seems like a lot to me and a limited window for adjustability. Can you measure the output current of the controller and see at how volts the cut off is and also make sure the max output is 5V and not 10V like it is for the meanwells.
I have a 12x Cree 3W 50/50 mix setup inside a 24" old power compact fixture. The fixture I had over a 20L frag tank and it was tough to find a balance of keeping some SPS from browning out while some SPS and LPS bleached if I went higher than 40%. At that point I had to use strategic coral placement and 70 degree optics on the middle LEDs to try and keep everyone happy.
I've been waiting forever for them to fix the little CNC machine at work. As soon as it's fixed I'll take the heatsink out of the PC fixture and machine a pocket in the fins for the fan and drill some mounting holes. The heatsink is 9" and will be a perfect fit inside the hood of my BioCube 8 that I now use as a QT tank.
Kind of off topic but... anyone know of any dimmable drivers that will run just 3 3w bridgelux LEDs? My Apollo LED's have 3 moonlights on each fixture (3W RB) running on a constant current 3 x 1W driver. I was wondering if I could switch out that driver with something that would allow me to dim the moonlights instead of just on/off control. My Reef Angel controller will let me program a moon phase cycle and it would work much better with dimmable moonlights.
Haha, while replacing the moonlight driver would likely void the warranty, I'm pretty sure just removing some screws of the case and examining the hardware didn't do anything to void my warranty. I didn't touch any wiring, components, clips, nor any screws inside the case so I did nothing that would void the warranty. There was no "seal" to crack in order to open the case either.
Also, the warranty explicitly states that the warranty does not apply to products "that have been modified without the written permission of Apollo Reef LED ". So I'm guessing that if I wanted to change the drivers, I could request permission in writing and possibly be able to do that if I really wanted to.
In all reality, it may not even be worth it for me to do that anyway. Simple on/off control of the moonlights should be all I really need. I was just curious if there was anything available to do it.
Also, the warranty explicitly states that the warranty does not apply to products "that have been modified without the written permission of Apollo Reef LED ". So I'm guessing that if I wanted to change the drivers, I could request permission in writing and possibly be able to do that if I really wanted to.
In all reality, it may not even be worth it for me to do that anyway. Simple on/off control of the moonlights should be all I really need. I was just curious if there was anything available to do it.
Yes, you could do it if you want. There are dimmable constant current drivers that can drive 3 to 10 (some up to 14) 3W LEDs. You would have to put them on their own circuit and you would then need a controller that can handle 3 seperate channels to control and dim all three.
I followed the advice of the guys at ledsupply through countless emails and phone calls, they set me up with everything i needed. They suggested the buck blocks as they were relatively new at the time. It's from my understanding pretty much 2 drivers in one. If I remember correctly, they run 0-5v dimmer controls. There's 12 LEDs on each leg controlled seperately from my typhon controller. The buck block runs 12 LEDs, 2 legs of six with the two legs running parallel to each other@1400mah, so I assume that would be equivalent to two buck pucks running 700 mah with 6 LEDs. I had the same drop out effect using the pots prior to installing my controller. I say 25% bc that is what reads on my controller, but in actuality 25% is just brighter than my moon lights, which are pretty dim. It may just be an issue with the controller giving a nominal percentage. As far as current, if anything I would think the whites are underpowered at the moment.
I went with optics because the light bounced everywhere, which probably is why the tank seemed brighter without them. The flicker also was very annoying and unattractive. The lenses cleaned everything up and I'm very happy with the result except that I have some minor spotlighting at the top of the tank. I'm now looking to change them out for wider angle lenses once I get the time and money. I haven't seen any negative effects that I can attribute to the LEDs except maybe one frag of palys that looked a bit washed out bc it was too high up, but it was splitting heads of every couple days, I've since fragged it and moved it lower and it seems to be doing fine. My phosphates turned out to be high which would explain the slow growth of my other corals, I'm currently dealing with that now...sigh
I went with optics because the light bounced everywhere, which probably is why the tank seemed brighter without them. The flicker also was very annoying and unattractive. The lenses cleaned everything up and I'm very happy with the result except that I have some minor spotlighting at the top of the tank. I'm now looking to change them out for wider angle lenses once I get the time and money. I haven't seen any negative effects that I can attribute to the LEDs except maybe one frag of palys that looked a bit washed out bc it was too high up, but it was splitting heads of every couple days, I've since fragged it and moved it lower and it seems to be doing fine. My phosphates turned out to be high which would explain the slow growth of my other corals, I'm currently dealing with that now...sigh
Thanks Brian. Do you know which dimmable drivers will run a min of 3 - 3W bulbs? (I could run them at lower wattage if necessary, as they're for moonlights and will be dimmed low anyway.)
My controller comes with 2 PWM channels and I bought an expansion relay that has 6 additional channels... so right now I can have up to 8 channels. If needed, I could get up to 8 relay modules for a total of upto 50 individually controlled channels... so I don't think that will be my limitation here.
The Wrong Reefer - Sorry to kind of hijack your thread here. I thought people interested in your topic might be interested in my question and any answers too. Sounds like you found a setup that works for you, or at least you know how to correct it when you can with different optics.
No worries, I just started this thread to see where it'd go and maybe give others some ideas...
Currently got them down to 70%, excuse the tank while its under construction... lol
Currently got them down to 70%, excuse the tank while its under construction... lol