Broke another tank out to plant and needed some lights. LED's are all the rage and for good reason. Less heat, more energy efficient and no bulbs to replace compared to the more traditional counterparts. Also it's easy to customize an LED array to exactly the way you want it, instead of just off the shelf offerings for most lights.
Total cost for this project was $76.06. I did have a few things already, but the vast majority I did have to buy. I spent $48 and some change on the LED's, heatsink, driver for the LED's and thermal pads. The rest went to the enclosure and hanging materials. The enclosure is 18" long, and not sure how wide...not measured.
I'm going to suspend this from the ceiling. The tank is in our master bathroom on the vanity. I really messed up by not going ahead and getting optics when I got the LED stuff. I ordered everything from rapidled.com. I'm going to try some 40 degree optics so I can hang the light about 2 feet from the tank. Right now it's just spewing light everywhere.
Now, I have no PAR meter, but I chose these LED's and driver based off of other people who said that these would be a good combination in a smaller tank like this. My 2 foot light above the tank goal might be a bit high, as it may have to be closer to get the light levels where they need to be.
The enclosure is still in rough shape, not finished yet. Still have to do some finish work to it (add another piece of angle aluminium to the back, cover it with something or paint it and other small stuff). But I'm going to try to get it suspended today. When I do I'll get some more photo's up.
I would be happy to answer any questions anyone's got! This was a neat project.
Total cost for this project was $76.06. I did have a few things already, but the vast majority I did have to buy. I spent $48 and some change on the LED's, heatsink, driver for the LED's and thermal pads. The rest went to the enclosure and hanging materials. The enclosure is 18" long, and not sure how wide...not measured.
I'm going to suspend this from the ceiling. The tank is in our master bathroom on the vanity. I really messed up by not going ahead and getting optics when I got the LED stuff. I ordered everything from rapidled.com. I'm going to try some 40 degree optics so I can hang the light about 2 feet from the tank. Right now it's just spewing light everywhere.
Now, I have no PAR meter, but I chose these LED's and driver based off of other people who said that these would be a good combination in a smaller tank like this. My 2 foot light above the tank goal might be a bit high, as it may have to be closer to get the light levels where they need to be.
The enclosure is still in rough shape, not finished yet. Still have to do some finish work to it (add another piece of angle aluminium to the back, cover it with something or paint it and other small stuff). But I'm going to try to get it suspended today. When I do I'll get some more photo's up.
I would be happy to answer any questions anyone's got! This was a neat project.
