Hello everyone! I am new to the saltwater tank experience and I just picked up a used Coralife Biocube 29 gallon tank and I am interested in upgrading the lighting on it. Depending on cost, I am wanting to be able to have enough light to do all corals up to SPS in the event that I decide to. More than likely I may just do softies and LPS's but it would be nice to have the lighting to do SPS and not have to get more lighting later on. I found the Ecoxotic E-series LED strips and I was curious if I went with those lights, how many I might need? Or I guess the first question I should ask, is will they work and provide enough light? I was looking at the E-45 full spectrum LED strips found here http://www.ecoxotic.com/e-series-led.html. Or the Pro version at this site: http://www.aquacave.com/current-usa...HE0aNgI1DWewkbpm58kFSs4a7cN_jfY-ckaAjN_8P8HAQ. Thanks everyone and hope to get some good recommendations.
Biocube 29 Lighting mods
- Thread starter Th3D0n
- Start date
I'm curious as well! I just started a 24 gallon Current Aquapod (hand-me-down) 10 weeks ago, running 32w daylight CFL and 32w dual actinic CFL. I have considered the Current LED lights, but have decided to use the florescent for the time being. I have mostly softies and a couple LPS , and they seem to be doing well. However, from all my reading, the best coral food is proper lighting. I would love to hear people's comments and ideas! Cheers.
Thank you for the quick reply. It appears the Orbit Marine Pro seems to have a little more PAR if I am reading the data sheet correctly? I would be getting the 18" Pro since I have the Biocube 29.
http://current-usa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Orbit_Marine_Light_Specifications.pdf
http://current-usa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Orbit_Marine_Light_Specifications.pdf
Still may not be enough PAR for SPS. Look for PAR to be around 200ish on your sand bed and around 400ish mid tank and 600ish at the top. These numbers will grow SPS well in the upper regions of the tank. Now, with LED, there is conflicting information about PAR and whether or not you should even measure it. Many will say you need to measure PUR instead. I'm no expert on lighting though so hopefully someone else with more knowledge will chime in.
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Thanks again for the responses. I would not be going hoodless at this time and I think that in the biocube I am not going to worry too much about harder SPS corals. I will mainly focus on softies and some LPS corals in this tank after thinking about it more so I am thinking with that said I should be safe with the Orbit Marine Pro?
If you are electrically inclined what so ever I would also recommend Rapid Led over that current-usa light
This kid I promise will let you grow anything you wanted:
http://www.rapidled.com/solderless-oceanic-biocube-29-dimmable-retrofit-kit/
This kid I promise will let you grow anything you wanted:
http://www.rapidled.com/solderless-oceanic-biocube-29-dimmable-retrofit-kit/
Thanks CRW Reef. I had seen that setup as well and was thinking about something like that. The one I was looking at was this one.. http://www.rapidled.com/copy-of-oceanic-biocube-29-dimmable-retrofit-aurora-puck-kit/ I'm assuming that would work for anything I would want to put in the tank as well?
I would say so, the only thing I dont nec love is if something goes array with the multi chip led you have to replace the whole thing vs just replacing single leds the other way. But aside from that I have no knowledge of the multi-chip leds. I know Lyle used a Aurora Multi-chip puck in this build thread and it might be worth shooting him a PM for his thoughts on it. http://www.marinecolorado.org/forums/showthread.php?27770-DIY-LED-Build
I was just going to do what this guy did and rip everything out of the hood, put the current LED on the tank and then put the hood back on top.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjTJi4xtKiQ