# Help/advice needed with DIY led project



## Hillbilly Homer (Sep 25, 2012)

would this be able to grow 

1) low 
2) medium 
3) high

The tank is 28/Gall 30/L 12/W 18/D 

Planning on two drivers on separate switches

One bank with White and blue.
B W W W B W W W B W B W W W B

Two R&b
B R R R B R R R B R R B R R B 


i do know that there are better quality leds out there but i am on a very tight budget.[smilie=f:

Constant Current Driver for 14-18pcs 3W High Power LED
Working temperature: -20-80 Deg
Input Voltage: AC85V ~ 265V 50/60HZ
Output Voltage: DC36V~75V
Output Current: 600mA
TC: 75 degree (MAX)
TA: 50 degree (MAX)
Size: (L) 85mm*(W)27mm*(H)24mm
Usage: Used for the 14~18pcs 3W LED Light 

10PCS 3W High Power Red LED Emitter 610-630nm 70lm with 20mm Star Base
- Output Lumens: 70Lumens
- DC Forward Voltage (VF) : 2.2-2.8Vdc
- DC Forward Currect (IF) : 700mA
- Wavelength:610-630nm

10PCS 3W High Power Cold White LED Light Emitter 30000K
Output Lumens: 160-180 Lumens
- DC Forward Voltage (VF) : 3.2-3.6Vdc
- DC Forward Currect (IF) : 700mA
- Color Temp: 30000K (Cold White)

10PCS 3W Royal Blue High Power LED Emitter 700mA
Output Lumens: 120Lumens
DC Forward Voltage (VF) : 3.0-3.4Vdc
DC Forward Current (IF) : 700mA
Wavelength:445-455nm

45degree led Lens

Lens Dimaeter: 20mm
Holder Diameter: 22mm
Lens Height: 10.5mm
Holder Height: 13mm
Transmittance rate: 93%
Beam Angle: 45 Degree
lens: water clear

30degrees led Lens

Lens Degree: 30°
Diameter : 21.5mm
Height : 13.5mm
Len Material : PMMA


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## Hillbilly Homer (Sep 25, 2012)

Two drivers on separate switches.








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## Hillbilly Homer (Sep 25, 2012)

Made this to help me visualize the lens angle.


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## customtanks (Oct 31, 2014)

Dam, u got a ton of help huh. Lol ima newb myself wit tha LEDs but that seems ok to me. I bet someone else will make u buy something else tho like a different driver, or 2 more LEDs so u can make 2 strings of 11 LOL (sarcasm)


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## jmelvin (May 17, 2015)

Just out of curiosity why so much blue and red? Me personally, replace half the red and blue with a warmer white in the 3500k to 6500k and a couple cyan LED's. I spent the last six months researching and building mine. Lots of good info on the other planted tank forum.


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## Hillbilly Homer (Sep 25, 2012)

customtanks said:


> Dam, u got a ton of help huh. Lol ima newb myself wit tha LEDs but that seems ok to me. I bet someone else will make u buy something else tho like a different driver, or 2 more LEDs so u can make 2 strings of 11 LOL (sarcasm)


:faint2: Someone responded! Yes i figured someone would tell me that i needed to buy not billed, or at least tell me i needed to buy all cree products.



jmelvin said:


> Just out of curiosity why so much blue and red? Me personally, replace half the red and blue with a warmer white in the 3500k to 6500k and a couple cyan LED's. I spent the last six months researching and building mine. Lots of good info on the other planted tank forum.


i ended up going a little different route. 

2) Current Driver for 14-18pcs 3W High Power LED AC85-265V
1)10PCS 3W Royal Blue 700mA 450-455NM with 20mm Star PCB
1)10pcs 3w high power neutral white led light emitter 4000k
1)50pcs Led Waterproof Lens Holder 30 Degree
1)10PCS 3W High Power Cold White LED Light Emitter 30000K


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## Hillbilly Homer (Sep 25, 2012)

First bank working. Royal blue and the 30000K.


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## christappy (Jan 18, 2015)

Get some daytime running lights for a car from China.
specs:
12v
20 watts
7000k
waterproof
rust and oxidization resistant
3M peel & stick strip
low heat

Cost me $3.00USD for the leds and got the 12v adapter from value village. Bought some broken toy for $1 that came with a 55w, 6amp, 12v adapter....SCORE!!!

The picture is sideways..sorry gang.


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## christappy (Jan 18, 2015)

Here's my aquarium id with just the floro going.


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## Hillbilly Homer (Sep 25, 2012)

Will it grow plants?


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## christappy (Jan 18, 2015)

I originally received 8 stems of wisteria and a medium sized water sprite. Everything except for 1 wisteria stalk and a few fragments of water sprite slowly died due to light deprivation while using the stock floro. Since adding the leds the remaining wisteria shot tons of fresh growth and some fat roots and the water sprite fragments fattened up their rhizomes. You could see the new wisteria roots growing faster than the foliage. I added my amazon sword and tapegrass after the leds. After a week in my aquarium they were looking much better than when I initially bought them and also shot savage root systems into the substrate. Everything was going strong until I added some driftwood I found...then all the plants TOOK OFF! Everything threw more/heavier roots, fresh foliage growth everywhere, runners and babies forming. I had to improvise and settle for the lights I could afford. It was a great decision that has resulted in a great looking tank.


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## Hillbilly Homer (Sep 25, 2012)

Got any pics?


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## Hillbilly Homer (Sep 25, 2012)

:clap2:...Got er dun...:clap2:

Thank you everyone for all the help and advice.


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## christappy (Jan 18, 2015)

I had all 8 wisteria stems and the water sprite in a 3 gallon jar to begin with. It was a walstad experiment. Used a 15 watt (5 x 3watt leds), 4 band led (630 red x2, 660 red x 1, 440 blue x1, 10,000k white)...it ran at about 6 true watts. Picture below:









That was all well and good, but the light was was not powerful enough and the plants were fighting for space.

I decided I was going to move my plants to a bigger setup. I had to get rid of my goldfish that I had for 5-7 years. It wasn't fair to them to be all crammed into my little tank. I gave them to a hippie lady down the street. Here is my freshly setup tank. Again with a walstad tech. A very shallow 2 cm of substrate, topped with 1 cm of pea gravel. Only 1 piece of driftwood and 2 large-med sized rocks. This was with the stock floro. The stalks started to die back. You can see the plants are much shorter...pic below:









And here is just a few quick shots...

Floro running in hood..leds hooked up, but not running









Floro running over tank









Leds and floro running









leds and floro running over tank with what's left of my wisteria and water sprite with added tapegrass and sword


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## christappy (Jan 18, 2015)

I've ordered another pack of these lights. I'll do a step-by-step once they arrive.


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## Tanan (Mar 11, 2009)

Looks great. As fellow user of these leds and drivers I have had a mix kinda luck with them. The drivers are perfect for running these or Cree xpe but the leds seems to burn out on me every few months which meant I would have to take down the fixture and fix it. I used a mix of reds, blues, warm white and cold white leds. The tanks grew plants like crazy and my ludwigia mini was unbelievably super red.


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## TropTrea (Jan 10, 2014)

Wow I
wish I would seen your post in May.

First off if your using LED's of any quality level you will be overpowering the lighting and taking your tank well over the high light range. 

From the units I have built using CREE LED's I have found that for a 28 gallon tank Low light would be in the range of under 8 watts and high light would be just under 28 watts. 

Through multiple builds I had tried blue and red LED's but found the best combination was a 50/50 split between neutral white 4,000K and Cool White 6,500K. Using other LED's can give you a boast for special plants but general require more total wattage to get the same results on other plants. 

Quality is worth the price with LED's. Sure you can spend $6.00 on a quality 3 or 5 watt LED but from some of the cheaper vendors it may take three times the wattage to match the light output and while 6 LED's for $36 could be doing the job for you with the cheaper ones you may need 18 LED's costing $54. Then the quality LEDs should last your 7 plus years the cheap ones you might end up with some burning out in under 2 years.

If you build help pleas feel free to personal message me.

Dennis


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## Hillbilly Homer (Sep 25, 2012)

...Thank you Dennis!..
That is it info i was looking for!

i did a tare down of the tank (it was planned well before the lights) do to a very nasty FW green hair algae that i could not kill off. But before the tear down the few surviving plants where pearling nicely.

The rebuild is in the works as i type.

P.S. My newest tank in progress.


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## Hillbilly Homer (Sep 25, 2012)

Update

Had to rework the lights.
First thing i wish to say it had nothing to do with the cheap generic leds.
All the leds still work but sum of the 20mm stars are kind of bad LOL :-k[smilie=n:
...i thank moisture MAY have got in some of them... 
Would giving them a coat of cheap fingernail polish help with the corrosion. "To stop it before it starts"

[IMG]http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/l595/HillbillyyHomer/led%20fish%20bad%201_zpseks6jcmr.jpg[/IMG]


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## Maryland Guppy (Mar 5, 2015)

Hillbilly Homer said:


> Update
> 
> Had to rework the lights.
> First thing i wish to say it had nothing to do with the cheap generic leds.
> ...


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## Hillbilly Homer (Sep 25, 2012)

Maryland Guppy said:


> The issue is occasional failure and sometimes a not so good batch rolls through.
> Lost about 15 3 watt beads in 3 years, at rock bottom prices, who cares.


:thumbsup: :thumbsup:



Maryland Guppy said:


> 20mm stars are really on the cheap side anyway.
> Have you thought of other LED PCB's they come in many configurations too.
> A little more quality than the 20mm and just solder 3 watt beads to them.


No i haven't but i will now. Thank You



Maryland Guppy said:


> LED's, where they to close to a filter outlet or bubbles?


Yes about 2" over the air stone.


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## Maryland Guppy (Mar 5, 2015)

A few more thoughts!

Any cheap UV(lower than 400nm) is a waste.
Lens melt and kind of wrinkle until they die.
High quality UV is very expensive.

I have added full spectrum LED's to all my fixtures now.
Noticeable improvement in growth.
Since they cast a pink/purple hue, for every full spectrum I add a 15K to complement it.
Can't notice the pink hue this way.

Green LED's may improve viewing plants.
Green can also degrade the PAR rating in a puck arrangement.
Less dimming for me with the added greens.

Do you have dimming capability or use a controller?


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## Hillbilly Homer (Sep 25, 2012)

No i dont have a dimmer but a have it rigged up to adjust the light from 2" to 2' above the tank.

At 2" and half of the lights on all the plants start pearling like mad


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