Hey guys, told you I'd do a build thread of my LED build. Anyway, let me start from the beginning with the research that I did.
I first got my Biocube about a week before Thanksgiving 2011. The tank was only up for about 2 weeks when I started looking at lighting upgrades. I knew that I really wanted a clam, and possibly some SPS. The big debate I was having with myself is the fact that my tank has almost always run hot. This meant that I couldn't go with a MH conversion, or the conversions that add 1-2 more of the stock PC bulbs as both of these would almost necesitate a chiller. So I started looking at LEDs. Holy cow, there are a lot of options when you start digging into things. I read almost every DIY LED build over on nano-reef.com as a lot of those guys were putting them into the Biocubes the same way I wanted to.
Then I went over to Kris's house, kalgra, and saw his AI SOL Nano on his JBJ. Man that looked nice so I started looking into those. I thought this was the way I was going to go. Got Kris to send me a few pictures, showed them to the wife and she said, "That's ugly. You can't do that." DANGIT. Would have been so much easier, but she likes the way the BC looks with the hood on it. This left me with no choice but to do a DIY.
Now to choose to do a kit, of make my own. There are a lot of really good kits out there, a few off the top of my head:
www.rapidled.com
www.stevesleds.com
www.aquastyleonline.com
I was really leaning towards the AquaStyle kit as I didn't really want to spend over 2x the price for CREEs. There is a great thread on Nano-Reef of people ordering these kits and the end results. I tried emailing the guy several times and couldn't get a response. This left me with a CREE kit of piecing my own together.
It was then that I found www.ledgroupbuy.com. I mainly found them from Milad who frequents Nano-Reef. I started looking at all the options that he had and the different products. It was then that I decided I wanted to build my own from scratch. I started talking to Milad a lot through PM. I couldn’t have been happier with his communication. Even though I was just asking questions his was quick to respond and thurough in his explinations. Never once did he complain about all the questions I was asking. Through reading of another thread I saw that he recommended the following numbers and colors for a 29g BioCube:
18 Royal Blue
12 Neutral White
6 True Violet
4 Deep Red
4 Turquoise
I wanted to make sure that this wouldn’t be too much, and he assured me that if they could all be dimmed then it wouldn’t be a problem and that the color would be amazing.
So with that decided I started ordering parts. My first order from www.ledgroupbuy.com was for all my LEDs. Took a bit longer, which I knew it would, since they had to get the Royal Blue and White with 120 degree optics. I also ordered a 7.29”x14” heatsink from www.heatsinkusa.com. This was shipped fast and looked great. Also ordered was a Noctua 120mm variable speed fan. I saw this used on another build and liked it. This will be my fan for bringing air into the hood and onto the heatsink. I also ordered a silentX fan from newegg to be my exhaust fan. Both fans are extremely quiet and should be a nice improvement from the stock fans.
Now I had to figure out how I wanted to control these lights. I really wanted to go with a full system controller, but they are all just a bit too expensive to do on top of this build. This left the BoostLED Typhoon and the LEDGroupBuy DIM4 as my options. I really thought that I was going to go with the Typhoon. Everything looked good, but when I went to order they were almost 3 weeks out. Well that sucks. So I went back to the DIM4 and again, asked Milad a lot of questions. The biggest advantage to the DIM4 is the 2 relay spots. You can plug your fans into these spots and your fan will let your LEDs go completely dark, but it will also run your fan as long as the channel has power. This helps to ease my worry about the fans running either too much or not enough. If the LED’s are on, the fans are on.
With the controller decision made I could order my drivers. The DIM4 requires the “D” series of Meanwell drivers. I found a sit online, who I’m not going to name, that had amazing prices. Actually KhensuRa may have pointed them out. Online it didn’t show that they had the drivers I needed, 3 ELN-60-48D and 2 ELN-60-27D. I emailed them and they said they would have them in on 3/7 and would ship same day. Awesome, put in my order. On 3/15 I asked if they had shipped and got a response that they were still 2 weeks out. DANG IT AGAIN. Well, cancel that order. I then went back to Milad and order 3 40w Inventronics drivers and 2 20w. These are really nice as they don’t require an external power source. Basically the one power plug for the DIM4 will power all my lights. These should be here on 3/22.
I first got my Biocube about a week before Thanksgiving 2011. The tank was only up for about 2 weeks when I started looking at lighting upgrades. I knew that I really wanted a clam, and possibly some SPS. The big debate I was having with myself is the fact that my tank has almost always run hot. This meant that I couldn't go with a MH conversion, or the conversions that add 1-2 more of the stock PC bulbs as both of these would almost necesitate a chiller. So I started looking at LEDs. Holy cow, there are a lot of options when you start digging into things. I read almost every DIY LED build over on nano-reef.com as a lot of those guys were putting them into the Biocubes the same way I wanted to.
Then I went over to Kris's house, kalgra, and saw his AI SOL Nano on his JBJ. Man that looked nice so I started looking into those. I thought this was the way I was going to go. Got Kris to send me a few pictures, showed them to the wife and she said, "That's ugly. You can't do that." DANGIT. Would have been so much easier, but she likes the way the BC looks with the hood on it. This left me with no choice but to do a DIY.
Now to choose to do a kit, of make my own. There are a lot of really good kits out there, a few off the top of my head:
www.rapidled.com
www.stevesleds.com
www.aquastyleonline.com
I was really leaning towards the AquaStyle kit as I didn't really want to spend over 2x the price for CREEs. There is a great thread on Nano-Reef of people ordering these kits and the end results. I tried emailing the guy several times and couldn't get a response. This left me with a CREE kit of piecing my own together.
It was then that I found www.ledgroupbuy.com. I mainly found them from Milad who frequents Nano-Reef. I started looking at all the options that he had and the different products. It was then that I decided I wanted to build my own from scratch. I started talking to Milad a lot through PM. I couldn’t have been happier with his communication. Even though I was just asking questions his was quick to respond and thurough in his explinations. Never once did he complain about all the questions I was asking. Through reading of another thread I saw that he recommended the following numbers and colors for a 29g BioCube:
18 Royal Blue
12 Neutral White
6 True Violet
4 Deep Red
4 Turquoise
I wanted to make sure that this wouldn’t be too much, and he assured me that if they could all be dimmed then it wouldn’t be a problem and that the color would be amazing.
So with that decided I started ordering parts. My first order from www.ledgroupbuy.com was for all my LEDs. Took a bit longer, which I knew it would, since they had to get the Royal Blue and White with 120 degree optics. I also ordered a 7.29”x14” heatsink from www.heatsinkusa.com. This was shipped fast and looked great. Also ordered was a Noctua 120mm variable speed fan. I saw this used on another build and liked it. This will be my fan for bringing air into the hood and onto the heatsink. I also ordered a silentX fan from newegg to be my exhaust fan. Both fans are extremely quiet and should be a nice improvement from the stock fans.
Now I had to figure out how I wanted to control these lights. I really wanted to go with a full system controller, but they are all just a bit too expensive to do on top of this build. This left the BoostLED Typhoon and the LEDGroupBuy DIM4 as my options. I really thought that I was going to go with the Typhoon. Everything looked good, but when I went to order they were almost 3 weeks out. Well that sucks. So I went back to the DIM4 and again, asked Milad a lot of questions. The biggest advantage to the DIM4 is the 2 relay spots. You can plug your fans into these spots and your fan will let your LEDs go completely dark, but it will also run your fan as long as the channel has power. This helps to ease my worry about the fans running either too much or not enough. If the LED’s are on, the fans are on.
With the controller decision made I could order my drivers. The DIM4 requires the “D” series of Meanwell drivers. I found a sit online, who I’m not going to name, that had amazing prices. Actually KhensuRa may have pointed them out. Online it didn’t show that they had the drivers I needed, 3 ELN-60-48D and 2 ELN-60-27D. I emailed them and they said they would have them in on 3/7 and would ship same day. Awesome, put in my order. On 3/15 I asked if they had shipped and got a response that they were still 2 weeks out. DANG IT AGAIN. Well, cancel that order. I then went back to Milad and order 3 40w Inventronics drivers and 2 20w. These are really nice as they don’t require an external power source. Basically the one power plug for the DIM4 will power all my lights. These should be here on 3/22.
