Bright Enough LEDs?

Watashi

Newly Enlightened
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May 9, 2010
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Hi, I've searched for an answer so sorry if this has been discussed before.

I just purchased some White, Blue and UV LED's 24mA 3.4v. White is 20kmcd, Blue 6kmcd and UV is 2kmcd. Will these be bright enough to support life? Silly question :) but it's for a saltwater fish tank where the coral needs a certain intensity of light to sustain life. I think 100w of flourescent light is more than enough for coral, if that gives you any info to base it off of.

I'm new to LED's so if I missed crucial info sorry, just let me know the info you need and I'll get it.

Thanks in advance.
 
100 watts of fluorescent will produce 5000 lumens.
The LEDs you are purchasing are in the 3-5 lumen range. So you need at least 1000 of them.

MCD #s are unreliable as to the total amount of light the LED produces. For the same amount of light a wide beam angle produces a smaller MCD #, a narrow beam will produce a larger MCD #. A 5mm wide beam will give the highest MCD # but a 5mm narrow beam is rather useless for lighting up a fish tank.

UV is harmful to the eyes and skin. You have to be careful none gets out into the room.
 
Your probably going to want to use much higher power LEDs then the ones you have sourced. As LEDninja pointed out you will need literally 1000's of 5mm LEDs to support plant growth (is coral a plant?).

You need to look into 1W, 3W, and 5W classified LEDs. 1W leds will be rated for 350mA, 3W willl run at 700mA, ect.

The beauty of using LEDs to support vegetation is that you can custom taylor your spectrum using specific color LEDs. White LEDs are probably what you are after, however from what little reading I have done for growing coral, Blue seems to be an important wavelength as well.

Heres a good article and there are tons of forum entries all over the web on growing coral with LEDs.
http://www.aquaristsonline.com/blog...or-is-metal-halide-still-the-light-of-choice/
 
LEDninja has summarized pretty well, just some more detail to flesh out what he said...
First, the UV isn't TOO high a concern as thick aquarium glass (and water) will probably block the majority of it (but if it leaks from under the hood, that could be an issue, or reflectance off the water surface when looking in for feeding/cleaning, etc)... never hurts to be safe though either way. If you are getting enough UV from the fluorescent, then a matching amount from the LEDs won't behave any differently (it'll be just as dangerous, or safe, so long as the spectral range matches).

Those are terribly inefficient LEDs, a modern Cree running at 350mA, putting out over 100lm (as ninja mentioned, the OP LEDs are probably 3-5lm max per LED), will run in the low 3V range, even at high current (1A) the latest batches commonly run under/around 3.5V.

What that all means, if you have one white Cree LED at 350mA putting out 100lm of light at 3.2V, you have 100/.35*3.0 = 90lm/watt.

To achieve 90lm with the 5mm LEDs, at say 3lm/LED, you would need at least 30 of them. 30*.024*3.4=2.448 watts. So 2.5x the power (and a lot of extra heat going into the room), and a LOT of work (to wire up 30 LEDs properly), can all be replaced by a single good quality high-power LED.
For 5000lm (100w fluorescent estimate from ninja, actually seems low (fl are typically 80% efficient, but that's fixture and bulb-style dependent, so 50% works for this example), you'd need 50 high-power LEDs (at 350mA, fewer at higher current inputs, but heat-handling rapidly becomes a challenging design issue)... or roughly 1667 of the LEDs mentioned in the original post... just things to consider.
Also, 5mm LEDs (especially cheap ones) tend to rapidly degrade under constant usage, within months (or faster) you'd be losing double-digit percentages of output, necessitating MORE LEDs and more power, to stay equal to a good power-LED, or your fl bulb...

Bottom line, it's not feasible with 5mm LEDs, and even with power LEDs it's a challenge, if you get good heat handling, a Cree white LED, at 1A, will put out ballpark 250lm. We need 5000lm to match the bulb output, so you'd need 20, at a minimum. Power would be roughly 20*3.5*1=70watts, so not much power savings, considering the inital cost of LEDs, plus heatsink(s) design, power drivers, etc.
There are multiple LED design options, some better at heat handling, some higher-output per unit, but overall right now high-output LED tech is at roughly 80-100lm/watt no matter the other design parameters.

Fluorescent bulbs in optimal designs also run around 80lm/watt, so best case scenario, you can replace fl with LED and get EQUAL performance for "general" lighting. If directional or custom lighting is needed, then LEDs are more easily customized, putting light where needed, but for simple "tube replacement", they aren't any better today (except of course that fewer hazardous materials (mercury) are used, and relatively shock resistant with typically longer lifespans).

Ultimately, don't replace any working Fl/CFL bulbs with LEDs unless it's a design or maintenance consideration, as that is actually detrimental to the environment and your own costs (you don't gain anything significant, but you've tossed something that was already produced (damage already done), and replaced it with something else produced (doing additional damage, to the wallet, to the environment for production/materials, etc), for no significant gain, so it's a ultimately a loss). If/when your Fl/CFL dies, THEN consider replacing it with LED tech at which point it is no longer a loss (you have to replace with something at that point). By then LED tech might be better (it's improving steadily the past few years), so if your FL bulb lasts another year, your efficiency might be 110lm/watt for LED, instead of 90 today, and you've maximized the return on your investments.
 
For 5000lm (100w fluorescent estimate from ninja, actually seems low (fl are typically 80% efficient, but that's fixture

I know you're trying to give good information, but reef oriented fluorescent bulbs have little to do to do with visual lumen measurements. A 96watt power compact running a 50/50 split of 10,000k and actinic, which is common for salt water use, isn't going to relate to the 4100k T8 used in the fixture in your office. Also, without knowing how big Watashi's tank is there's no way to know if it's sufficient light or not. 100watts of T5 of PC is not a lot on a 70gal tank. However, it's overkill on a 15gal.

White is 20kmcd, Blue 6kmcd and UV is 2kmcd. Will these be bright enough to support life?

No, and even the chinese have stopped making reef lights based on 5mm and 10mm LEDs. 3watt and higher LEDs are cheap enough now and easy enough to work with that they are the standard for reef tanks. Also, UV is controversial in regards to growing coral and there really hasn't been established science one way or the other. Most guys who add UV to their LED rigs do so because of coloration issues. However, there are enough of us using LEDs on reef tanks without LEDs to confirm you don't need UV.

I'm running LEDs on my 10gal, and can grow anything you want. I used light measurements on my friend's metal halide based based tanks along with the show tanks at the reef stores as reference. Once I had that down I knew exactly what's required. Most of us running custom LED rigs on reef tanks have actually had to turn them down quite a bit. LEDs are very good at producing blue light which corals need. Actually, too efficient. The real dilema is what to use in addition to blue LEDs to get decent color, and that's were the arguement starts.

The biggest problem you'll run into is the reef forums dealing with lighting, and the attitudes involved. Reef tank forums are either polarized against LED, or stuffed full of zealots who refuse to let you do anything other than the way they are doing it. I got better color and saved a LOT of money not following this crowd.
 
This is a friends tank so I wasn't sure on the gallons until I called him today. It is a 30 gallon tank.

Ok, so thanks for all the info. I have a much better grasp on the multiplicative aspect of mA and W of LEDs.

Just for S&G's lets see if I have a good grasp on this.

Qty. 50 LEDs
forward current 100mA (just a round number)
Voltage 12v

Totals would be, 5000mA (5A) x 12v = 60W? Did I do good? :duh2: Or do I use LED voltage (3.4) instead of total input voltage?
 
This is a friends tank so I wasn't sure on the gallons until I called him today. It is a 30 gallon tank.

Ok, so thanks for all the info. I have a much better grasp on the multiplicative aspect of mA and W of LEDs.

Just for S&G's lets see if I have a good grasp on this.

Qty. 50 LEDs
forward current 100mA (just a round number)
Voltage 12v

Totals would be, 5000mA (5A) x 12v = 60W? Did I do good? :duh2: Or do I use LED voltage (3.4) instead of total input voltage?

Well yes if you had 50 leds that were rated at 100ma each and you strung them all up to run in parallel, you would indeed be using up about 60watts but that 60watts is in no way indicative of how much light you are putting out. I am assuming you are looking at 5mm leds or the like.. I don't think you should be trying to design a salt water lighting system. especially if you want to have it actually put out enough light of the right kind to support coral. I would suggest searching this site as there are a few people that have at least started threads about this type of thing.
 
Just for S&G's lets see if I have a good grasp on this.

Qty. 50 LEDs
forward current 100mA (just a round number)
Voltage 12v

Totals would be, 5000mA (5A) x 12v = 60W? Did I do good? :duh2: Or do I use LED voltage (3.4) instead of total input voltage?
If you put 12V across a LED you will fry the LED.
So 3 LEDs and a small dropping resistor in series will work with 12V.

Qty 150 LEDs 3 series 50 parallel
current 100 mA
voltage 12 V
Your 60W now powers 150 LEDs giving you 3X the amount of light.

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There are actually plenty of 100 mA LEDs around - the original MJLED, Nichia Rigel, Cree XP-C etc.

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Removing 60W of heat fast enough to keep the LEDs below 120°C will be a big problem.

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If you put your power supply in another enclosure, be aware if the outside enclosure is water tight (NEMA 4 or IPX8) all UR recognized PS have to be de-rated to 1/2 its nominal power. Only PS with the full UL listing can be run at full power. And please stay away from those sold at DX.
 
Totals would be, 5000mA (5A) x 12v = 60W? Did I do good?


Each LED is 3.4 volts x .1 amp (100mA) = ~.34watts each. To reach 60watts you're going to need 175 of them.

60watts is actually a decent starting number for a standard 30gal tank. That's 30watts of white and 30watts of royal blue. 1:1 is a common ratio for reef tanks. I'm running 45watts of LED on my 10gal, but I have more light than I need.

Again, the 'toy class' LEDs were discussing here won't do the job. If anything, because you're going to need optics. A 30gal tank is taller than it is deep, and without optics you'll be throwing light out the front and back. You want to concentrate light in the tank, and this means optics. 60 degree should work.

You're looking at 20-30 3watt LEDs. Heat sinking is another issue, but we have no problems finding bricks that can handle this - cost of shipping is another issue.

Powering them is easy.
 
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