CRW Reef;326615 said:
I am going to be removing the led panels and adding more T5s and new LED strips. I will be adding prob 3 strips total - 2 strips compose of True UV (400-410 nm) UV and Royal Blue Leds & 1 strip of whites (not sure on make up yet - really only adding them out guilt and uncertainty lol). I will do dimmable only for coral acclimation prob, then will want them on full power 99% of time.
I see those and seem cheap. looking at the heat sinks
http://www.rapidled.com/drilled-tapped-1-4-x-48-aluminum-heatsink/ and loks liek they hold 24 leds This would mean that each strip would take two kits - thats alot of leds isnt it lol? I do know i would rather have higher watt leds but not sure about lens..........
Does buying the most expensive led in their options nec mean your buying the best performer? What should I be looking for ?
That's a ton of light when your talking 3w LED's. If we're talking about your 75, you probably wouldn't want to use lenses, there is not enough room in your canopy. I took the lenses off of my led's, and lowered the fixture to about 6" off the water on my 90gal. Think of lenses as sharks with laser beams in their freakin' heads, they don't spread, and are designed to penetrate deeper. I did originally try to run lenses (I got 90 deg lenses thinking I needed them, maybe should have gotten 60 deg), and had my fixtures raised to about 24" above the water. Had tons of shadows, the tank actually seemed dim because the light stopped at the first thing it would hit. My tank is set up with a lot of vertical wall, so that didn't work very well.
I would definitely get dimmable, you can really dial in your colors that way, and I only run mine at average about 75%, and only run the whites at 80% for about 3 hrs a day, the rest of the time whites are down around 60% and ramping down. One other thing to consider is that violets (mine are actually violet, not true violet, so they may behave different) have kind of a funky color, and serious output that doesn't read well with par meters, they can be intense.... you don't need as many as you might think.
Here is the link to the complete kit....
http://www.rapidled.com/24-solderless-led-dimmable-actinic-supplement-kit/ Like I said before, rapid will let you mix n match colors, or at least they used to, might need to call.