What LED's to go with?

J

Jason7181

Member
I will be starting a 90 gallon reef setup and was wondering which LED's to go with either Orphek PR-156 or a DIY Phoenix kit from Reef led lights or AI modules?
 
the Orphek is only 24" long, so you will need 2 of them and its ~$900 per. I also believe Orphek does not use 3w CREE LEDs, which to me is a big minus.
if you are spending that kind of money I'd easily go with two EcoTech Radion XR30 LEDs instead.
another idea would be two AI Sol lights.
or if you want to do the DIY route the Reef LED Lights kits would work great. I have two 36 LED XP-E kits over my 75 gallon.
 
WeePee said:
the Orphek is only 24" long, so you will need 2 of them and its ~$900 per. I also believe Orphek does not use 3w CREE LEDs, which to me is a big minus.
if you are spending that kind of money I'd easily go with two EcoTech Radion XR30 LEDs instead.
another idea would be two AI Sol lights.
or if you want to do the DIY route the Reef LED Lights kits would work great. I have two 36 LED XP-E kits over my 75 gallon.
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I'm not good at electrical stuff so maybe I should stay away from DIY kits. Would the two AI Sol lights be enough to keep SPS and clams?
 
Isn't 1 orphek just as big as 2 AI sol, and if you add up the price, isn't the orphek actually cheaper? I have 1 orphek lighting up my 92 gallon corner, 40 inches from the sandbed and all my corals are doing/growing great. I even have a Haddoni on the sandbed 40 inches from the light and it's doing great and I barely feed it.
I own the PR 156 with the wide angle lense to get better spread.
If you go with the Al Sols, ieatchinese in RC is selling his set up for 300 something each I think, only used a few months, so you can save some money.
 
If you are going to mount to a canopy, get a dimmable LED fixture. You can't dim orphek. fixtures are going to be too close to the water if you use the canopy, so they will be getting too much light, you will need to dim.
 
Don't go with the Orphek it's a piece of junk (IMO) made by a dishonest company. They will not release any specs on the product because their made with cheap Chinese LEDs. They also "cover" up the truth. Do some real research and it'll all come to light.

I've seen all of the LEDs, that are currently on the market, in person and I'd go with the AIs Pheonix (when it's released) followed by the Ecotech radion in second.
 
If you want get a DIY kit from Rapid Led and i'll put it together for ya,i just finished doing a 36led kit from them with their controller for my 30g cube.They have fast shipping and cheaper pricing than reefledlights.
 
BADGUS said:
If you want get a DIY kit from Rapid Led and i'll put it together for ya,i just finished doing a 36led kit from them with their controller for my 30g cube.They have fast shipping and cheaper pricing than reefledlights.
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Are they dimable and also would I be able to keep clams and SPS under them?
 
have you ever tried reefledlights, its local and go for soderless if you are handy,quicker to put together and good options with more LEDs per fixture. reefledlights have more in stock and cheaper.
 
Yes they are dimmable and yes you may keep clams and SPS,mine are on a sunrise-sunset controller which is awesome.It was only $60more for the controllere.It takes 45minutes for leds to go from 5%power to 100%,then at noon there's an additional 12leds that come on for a ''high noon'' blast of light for 4hrs,then just 24leds stay on and at ''sundown'' it takes 45mins to go from 100% power to 0% which looks super cool.It's an awsome feature in my opinion.The controller has pre-set programs to change the photoperiod and sunrise-sunset time.



ptr13 said:
have you ever tried reefledlights, its local and go for soderless if you are handy,quicker to put together and good options with more LEDs per fixture. reefledlights have more in stock and cheaper.
Click to expand...
While i support the locals,reefledlights is more expensive,hence that is why i chose Rapidled.Plus they are cheaper shipping and no taxes!!!!!!!!!And Rapidled is in California which blows my mind.Anywho Rapidled is the way to go for me.Your final decision is yours to make.
 
I also would support RapidLED, and have. I have the RapidLED DIY on my 29g biocube and couldn't be happier. The only thing I miss is the fancy light controls cause I'm holding out for a deal on an rkl set I can use the alc module to do the sunrise/sunset phase with. For now I just have the dimmers set to a comfortable level and have blue come on 2 hours before white and off an hour after white in the evening.
 
Is there a way to hide all the wiring I hate that you can see all the wiring? That's why I think I will wait for the AI "Phoenix" to come out.
 
Those AI Phoenix looks mighty nice and I'm also big with hiding or less wires. We have the AI Sol's here and had to get 4 of them due to our cube shape. The wires for those are minimal but the only real gripe about them is the stand that comes with it. It had super short legs. Jake and I bought the hanging kit instead, which seemed to work just fine.
 
Hey badgus since you have experience with these Rapidled lights how many light kits do you think I would need for a 125gal because its getting old paying $300 to replace my halides and power compacts every 12 to 18 months plus I like the sunrise sunset feature.
 
Hey there I have the AI sol blue lights and live them. I have them above my aquarium about 12 inches and they are awesome because they can change from10k to 14k to 20k and have sunrise and sunset settings you can even have lighting storms in your tank. The thing about the AI controller is you can set 14 different timers in a 24 period! Also you can raise the white,blue,and royal blue from 0-100% for power. They are so powerful that they only run about 60% for the power of the lights. I have an Sps dominant 90 gallon reef and sustain maxima clams with no problem. Remember too that the higher the leds are over your tank it will spread evenly over the tank. I have 2 units over my 90.
 
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