# LED hood for planted FW tank



## davethetester

I've built 1 before using 420 5mm LED's, mainly white but some red & blue as well. I came to the conclusion that discretes don't cut the mustard, good but not great. It fits a 30" tank, you can see 1/2 of it in my avatar. It ammounts to about 20W in total.

I've just recieved these beauties today










60W of Luxeon, white, 5600K LED's 

Now let's see if we can grow plants with these ...... just gotta mount them somehow 1st.


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## davethetester

I knew I had some somewhere :wink: here's a couple of bits of likely looking ali to mount them on. Leaning up against the tank they'll eventually end up helping to illuminate. (sorry about the mess  )


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## Amphitrite

Excellent thread DTT - can't wait to see it coming along.  

Please keep posting pics! Do you have any pics of the set you have already completed?


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## joeshmoe

wow cool led


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## Daz

They look very technical Daveyboy, more pics and info required. Tidy 8)


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## Brandon

Thats sweet, where did you get em and how much were they? How do you wire them?


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## caferacermike

There are several places on EBay selling single LEDS and the ballasts to run them. Dave I'm interested in following this thread myself. Soalris is a commercial unit but costs thousands. I've known several people that bought the kits but failed to assemble them beacuse of how time consuming it was. Youa re right that the luxeon bulbs are currently the best. Look for some of the dioptic magnifiers, they will seriously intensify your LED.


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## davethetester

Thanks all. I'll try to take all questions individually.

Kate, good idea, see below.

Cheers joe.

Dazzy, when have you known me to get technical ........ more pics when I've done something to photograph ...... :roll: 

Brandon, I got them from a German company called Dotlight, a quick google should find them. They are not cheap. About 9 or 10 dollars each + shipping. Not entirely sure how I'll wire them yet, more than likely 2 sets of 7 in series as I have a top notch 24V power supply to hand.

mike, I don't like to give it a downer for performance as I've not tried 1 but I think the Solaris is ugly !! looks like some1 left an 80's video player on top of a tank !!! for the money it should look better. Having said that I'd love to have a play with 1. I also think their control system is far superior to anything I'm likely to come up with though I'm sure this adds greatly to the cost & isn't something most people would use much.

Anyway as I darn't go against the youpster's wishes here's some shots of the mkI

I started off with 160 white & 80 blue, 5mm, 15,000 mfd, 40 degree, discrete LED's. They are mounted in 2 lengths of inverted white plastic gutter.










Not so bright with the lights on










From the back, covers off










On the tank covers off. Incidentally the covers are 2 black, inverted, similar section, lengths of gutter that sit on top of the white 1's. I would point out that this is not a show tank ..... more an experimental 1. mrst would not allow gutter in the front room :squint: 










I wasn't happy with the intensity or the colour so added 60 more whites and 20 reds to bring the total to 420. It works and the plants grow pretty vigorously but it doesn't challenge the 72W of T5's that were on the tank previously. Hence the Luxeons.


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## Amphitrite

Dave, thanks for sharing this, you've made a really professional looking job of it.

Aye, that is some serious lighting you have there. :thumbsup:


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## davethetester

Kate, you are too kind, it looks better in the pics.

Here's a recent 1 of Nugget my female golden ancistrus basking in the LED's.


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## Daz

Tidy Davey, its so clean.


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## davethetester

thanks Daz. I think the cleanliness is down to the huge population of apple snails. There's 3 adults and 50 odd juveniles :shock:


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## Dizlal

That looks smashing David. :wink:


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## davethetester

Thanks Nandoposis.

I've done a bit more, here's 2 off 24" 7 LED light bars










This is more like it. They are very bright. Each bar has a max of 21W. To achieve that they'd need to run at 3.7V per LED but I'm only running around 3.4V for now.










Even with all the kitchen lights on they give my cam some probs with contrast.










Just got to fit them into some sort of hood/luminaire arrangement and we're off.


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## Jaysn

Very nice! What are you using as a moisture barrier, or is one even needed with those LEDs?


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## davethetester

Thanks Jaysn. I've got a fairly tight fitting plastic anti-condensation cover between the tank and the LED's. I've done abit more since I last posted.

Here they are in the mounting frame









and on the tank










brighter than the mkI by far










Here you can see the bars bending upwards as they are getting hotter and consequently expanding more than the frame. You can also see the anti-condensation cover.


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## magic_marty

you could add some lower wattage blue leds in between the white ones so it would give off a moonlight affect for the night.You would have to put it on a seperate circuit so both the white and blue wouldn't light at the same time.
prolly use a spdt switch to perform it.


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## AF_medic

Aren't those the same LED's that PFO is using in their Solaris lights?


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## titusoates

Any update on your led lighting?? I am looking to do something similar on my 48" reef tank; so question; what power supply did you use, and have you solved the heat problem? this fits a 30" how many leds for the 48"

I have found a few websites that may be of interest
http://www.ashevillemarine.org/bb/viewtopic.php?t=621&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
http://www.aquariumpros.ca/forums/showthread.php?t=29354

Kevin


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## caferacermike

This thread has gone silent for a very long time.

Used to be a source on Ebay out of Hong Kong that sold high powered 5w and 7w bulbs that are used in the Solaris project. Problem with it all is that you don't even see Solaris being advertised anymore. I think the LED fad for reef lighting has worn off. But look for that source on Ebay as they sold everything on the cheap needed to make your own set up. I think it was around $1 per LED or less.


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## davethetester

titusoates said:


> Any update on your led lighting?? I am looking to do something similar on my 48" reef tank; so question; what power supply did you use, and have you solved the heat problem? this fits a 30" how many leds for the 48"
> 
> I have found a few websites that may be of interest
> http://www.ashevillemarine.org/bb/viewtopic.php?t=621&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
> http://www.aquariumpros.ca/forums/showthread.php?t=29354
> 
> Kevin


Hiya Kevin, my LED's are European manufactured Phillips Luxeon 1W 5600K. They cost 6 Euro each landed and I've never seen them on ebay. I got mine from www.dotlight.de . I cured the heat issues by slotting the two ali bars the LED's are mounted on so they can expand without bowing. I also use an anticondensation cover which helps keep the water temp under control. The power supply I started out with was a 24V 10A unit salvaged from an old industrial control panel, this subsequently packed up and been replaced by a 3A unit from Maplins.

The reason I havn't up-dated the thread is that, other than the failed PSU and one LED having to be replaced, my lights are running just the same about a year later. TBH I don't know how many or what light temp you would require for a reef tank but would love to hear how you get on with it should you have a go.


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## caferacermike

Great to see this thread coming back.

http://stores.ebay.com/Sure-Electronics
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-3-WATT-BLUE...ryZ66948QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com.hk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=310011070590&ih=021&category=72686
http://cgi.ebay.com.hk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=310010823651&ih=021&category=66952
http://stores.ebay.com.hk/auspiciou...QQcolZ4QQdirZQ2d1QQfsubZ4646878QQftidZ2QQtZkm

Here are some places that might help you get started. Definitely get the reflectors and dome magnifiers.


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## davethetester

Hi Mike, I porposefully chose more expensive Luxeons of stated "point of manufacture" as there some seriously dodgy Chinese and Korean immitations about. If you check the 2nd link you posted it says

"SOLD AS-IS ONLY GUARANTEED TO WORK WHEN POWER IS FIRST APPLIED " .......... :blueshake: ....... also states 3W at the head of the page and 1W at the top of the specification. It's not only the reliability but how close they get to the specified performance.

When the difficulty of changing them and the fact they should just about last forever is taken into account I wouldn't skimp on them myself 

The lenses and stuff you linked to appear to be top banana though :thumbsup: I have a set waiting to be fitted to my lamps ..... havn't got round to it yet though .....


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## Pleco_stomus

dude, awesome job with the led's! it brings the colors out of the fish so perfectly! the pleco looks awesome under them. how many snails do you roughly have in there? i was gunna get one but man, after seein that it looks like they would be hard to get rid of.

but back to the lights awesome man, purely awesome.


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