# Help. What kind of LED Light for 75 gallon planted?



## Jimbo205

I am not handy at all. BUT I can use a drill, hammer, screw driver, etc. 

I am looking for an LED Light set up to put on top of a brand new 75 gallon planted aquarium. 

Out of the box would be nice. 

Thank you in advance for your help and your input. 

Jimbo205


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## TropTrea

This is an easy project. There are jits out there Rapid LED's is the best example with this kit http://www.rapidled.com/freshwater-75g-tank-dimmable-kit/ however it can be not only improved upon but you can also save a few dollars ordering parts separately.

From the basic idea of this kit I would make the following changes.

1. this kit is about 100 watts of LED lighting which would be overkill. The LED's they are selecting are heavy in the blue spectrum for a planted tanks. You should get good results with roughly 80 watts of LED lighting. My LED recommendation would be to run 12 Cool White and 12 neutral white LED's.

2, for drivers I would use a pair of the meanwell LPC 60-150 drivers. This will eliminate the need for a controller, and separate power supply but you will have a set lighting level. This would give you roughly 73 watts.

3. Using there heat sinks adds to the cost as you need cooling fans. Instead if you use a pair of 1" tall by 2" wide pieces of channel aluminum that are 48" long for the heat sinks you get a wider and more even light distribution as well as save money.

Another option would be using there non dimmable kit but you still need to change the color ratio of the LED's to a split between the cool and neutral whites. rather than the blueish kits that are more spat water friendly. The none dimmable kit of there is roughly 50 Watts.

3. For a 75 gallon tank I would not worry about using lens on the LED's. This could save you roughly another $20.00. Lenses I only recommend when you have more than 24" between the LED's and the substrate.


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## Jimbo205

TropTea Thank You. 

I assume the language that you used makes sense on that link, correct? 

If not, please translate. Thank you. 

Jimbo205


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## Kerry

Buildmyled has really good lights for planted tanks and plenty of info to help decipher what it is, too.


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## Jimbo205

Thank you.


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## Method

I love the PAR38 LEDs over my 75 gallon. Minimal DIY, but the price can't be beat. It cost me ~$80 for the whole setup.


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## kamlesh barot

*LED Lights*

Could anyone please tell me where to get 3 watt LEDs having a CCT of 10000 plus kelvins here in Mumbai reflown on PCB stars?

Kamlesh


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## wrenn420

Get a build my LED light. The build quality is awesome, I went with the 10,000K light it really makes your fish pop and plants pearl. The customer service is second to none and if you don't like it just return it no questions asked. I would advise calling and explaining what size tank you have and the fish and plants you plan on keeping, they will steer you in the right direction.


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## TropTrea

*Re: LED Lights*



kamlesh barot said:


> Could anyone please tell me where to get 3 watt LEDs having a CCT of 10000 plus kelvins here in Mumbai reflown on PCB stars?
> 
> Kamlesh


For the 10,000K units the only real source is ebay. But I do not trust the quality of other than the Phillips or Cree LED's. Unfortunately neither of these make a 10,000K LED, and I doubt that many sold as 10,000K or higher are truly that high of a K rating. As long as there not claiming a very high CRI on the LED the true K rating can be considerably off.

I'f your looking for a light in the 10,000K range my suggestion would be using a combination of Daylight (usualy in the 6,000 to 6,700K range) with some Royal Blues. On a ration of about 2 or 3 daylights to one Royal Blue you will be close to if not exceeding 10,000K already. Using the royal Blues will also concentrate the light more in the spectrum that the plants can utilize as well.


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## micheljq

Method said:


> I love the PAR38 LEDs over my 75 gallon. Minimal DIY, but the price can't be beat. It cost me ~$80 for the whole setup.


How much PAR38 leds you use over your 75G tank? and what is the wattage of those leds lamps?

Thank you, Michel.


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## Method

micheljq said:


> How much PAR38 leds you use over your 75G tank? and what is the wattage of those leds lamps?
> 
> Thank you, Michel.


I use 3 9X2 W bulbs with 120 degree optics. They are 6700 k and I got them from that internet auction site. The light is probably low, but I'm not having any problems growing plants that have been suggested to grow on the low end of medium intensity, e.g., alternanthera and others. I also have very little, if any, algae. I have a journal for the tank over on tpt. Triple filtered paludarium.


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## acitydweller

what is your objectives with the tank? going full high tech or low light biotope?


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## pandragon

Here are some 10,000k leds and they have a bunch of other k ranges and nm ranges. http://www.newark.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Search?catalogId=15003&langId=-1&storeId=10194&categoryId=800000005570&pageSize=25&showResults=true&pf=810075902


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## wrenn420

Get a build my LED light. The build quality is awesome, I went with the 10,000K light it really makes your fish pop and plants pearl. The customer service is second to none and if you don't like it just return it no questions asked. I would advise calling and explaining what size tank you have and the fish and plants you plan on keeping, they will steer you in the right direction.


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## TropTrea

pandragon said:


> Here are some 10,000k leds and they have a bunch of other k ranges and nm ranges. http://www.newark.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Search?catalogId=15003&langId=-1&storeId=10194&categoryId=800000005570&pageSize=25&showResults=true&pf=810075902


The big issue with most of these is need to mount them on a heat sink that is designed for the specific LED and you better be very good at doing near microscopic soldering.


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## TropTrea

wrenn420 said:


> Get a build my LED light. The build quality is awesome, I went with the 10,000K light it really makes your fish pop and plants pearl. The customer service is second to none and if you don't like it just return it no questions asked. I would advise calling and explaining what size tank you have and the fish and plants you plan on keeping, they will steer you in the right direction.


Yes they are one of the better fixture manufacturers. But they are considerably pricey compared to a quality DIY build with Cree LED's.


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## pandragon

Isn't designing a decent heat sink and soldering the fun part? Soldering surface mount components isn't as hard as you think if you have the right tools and a little bit of knowledge. With efficient leds you shouldn't have to have insane cooling solutions since you don't have wasted energy escaping as heat through the leds. You can even use simple drop resisters and a constant current regulator with an aluminum cover and some thermal paste would be fine.

Note my Finnex led is just that and all surface mount and I could solder every component in that thing and I don't have the best eyes in the world.

I can find a good link for some soldering tuts if you want and a decent usb microscope for around $100 if ya want.


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## TropTrea

pandragon said:


> Isn't designing a decent heat sink and soldering the fun part? Soldering surface mount components isn't as hard as you think if you have the right tools and a little bit of knowledge. With efficient leds you shouldn't have to have insane cooling solutions since you don't have wasted energy escaping as heat through the leds. You can even use simple drop resisters and a constant current regulator with an aluminum cover and some thermal paste would be fine.
> 
> Note my Finnex led is just that and all surface mount and I could solder every component in that thing and I don't have the best eyes in the world.
> 
> I can find a good link for some soldering tuts if you want and a decent usb microscope for around $100 if ya want.


Before I retired I spent many years soldering under a microscope. Usually changing out parts that were originally soldered using a flow bench. This was rorking on R and D as well as pre-production product lines. Soldering most surface mount component including 1/4 watt or less LED's is is no problem.

However for an economical built LED fixture with the latest and most efficient components your tanking about using LED's that are capable of handling 3 to 10 watts of power. While it is true that LED's produce less heat than most other forms of lights they still produce roughly 1/4 of the heat as florescent tubes and 1/10 of the heat of metal hide lights. This heat form a LED is concentrated into a small area only a couple millimeters in surface area. Therefore the transfer of the heat is extremely critical.

Very fortunately some of the best LED's no the market made by CREE and Phillips are available on Star mounts for only a fraction of the price more than the raw LED's. But when your running the LED's at more than just 1 watt on a continuous bases for several hours even these Star need to properly cooled by properly mounting them to a larger heat transfer surface allowing at least 4 square inches of surface are per watt for adequate cooling.

While it is true you can build a nice light fixture using 1/10 watt LED's these are not nearly as efficient as the newer higher wattage units often delivering close to 200 lumns per watt. Over all cost can also be higher as you will need more LED to reach the desired level of wattage with possibly up to 30 1/10 watt LED's required to output the same amount of light as possible with with a well designed 5 Watt LED's running at only 2 Watts.

Right now I have several tanks set up for breeding fish where I'm running roughly 1 Watt of LED's for 7 hours a day for every 4 gallons of water. My goal was to simply have enough light to keep my hornworth alive for fry to hide in. However the hornworth is growing almost uncontrollably where I need to thin it out at least once per week.

Years ago I built my first LED fixture using the greatest technology of the time with 1 watt LED's. Using 2 watts per gallon on a 12 hour cycle was the only way I could any plants from wither away. Yet the cost of those 1 Watts LED's were individually more than 2 the cost of what I can get a 10 Watt LED today.


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