RedSea Reefer 350 - and so it begins

dacianb

Active Member
Tank is looking good :) you need to get a few full tank pictures going :) when are the lights goonna be finished mad to see them :)

After almost 1 year testing the light on 2 different tanks I think is enough to "understand" it. I found some flaws and I see good things, so I am really close by final version :).

- change 1 - designed a power board, capable to handle 4 Meanwell LDD drivers (LDD-H or LDD-L 1000-1200-1500 mA versions), 2 different types of DC/DC drivers for fan power, also some extra connectors for PWM signal, so I can add thermal protections to light.
- change 2 - putting the fan inside the light, rather than on it. Dont have any functional reason, but rather aesthetics.
- Change 3 - with the existing module (around 125W) fan start from time to time and works couple of minutes to keep the system at 40°C, I decided to go on with power. New will be around 180W on LEDs, something around >200W from wall plug. I just received Friday the new LED boards (second picture) - 20mm wide, 3 channels each, 16 LEDs. Each fixture will have 4 such boards, theoretical 12 channels and by alternating the LEDs in this way and put them close to each other - great color mixing and no disco effects. Also plan to go from 1/1 deep-blue / white ratio to 2/1, as today i keep the whites at 30-40% to have a good color. 1/1 ratio create a warm looking tank, even if using neutral white leds.
Two such modules above tank will have enough power to keep anything in it.

On the led board, channels A and B footprints are for Osram LEDs and CREE XBDs, and channel C is mainly for CREE XP footprint. I still will use same crazy approach (some may say this, but is the normal and decent way to power the LEDs) by powering all LEDs at 50-70% max current. Oslon Signals, CREE XPG, etc

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dacianb

Active Member
This is how I plan the 4 boards / fixture to be configured (as colors-channels)
numbers represent watts. For violet range will be 6 x 425 nm and 4x400 nm LEDs (white and red text).
White is Neutral with 85 CRI value, so all additional colors (red, green, yellow - useless)
Seems that is almost 3/1 ratio of Deep Blue and whites :). Eventually I can swap channel 1 to use more whites and less deep blue??

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dacianb

Active Member
Another option I am considering is to add on channel 1 only high Kelvin whites (6000-8000K) and do a different channel for some far-red (680-730 nm LEDs) - channel 6-

endless possibilities :) - this is the main concept behind this light

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Desmond

Well-Known Member
I think either will be good. The first does have allot of blue in it :)
How about some UV and green led in there also ?
 

dacianb

Active Member
I think either will be good. The first does have allot of blue in it :)
How about some UV and green led in there also ?
6 x 425 nm and 4x400 nm LEDs - those are the violet ones. Officially, ultra-violet is below 400nm and is not a light visible to human eye. No aquarium lights on market use UV leds, but rather violets.
UV - dont have PAR add-on, just skin burning and materials ageing.
The high CRI / neutral whites have enough green in them (more than you think) to make the green leds useless. Right now I dont have any green led, but lot of green corals and they look awesome green

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dacianb

Active Member
Yesterday, small WC and running tests.
NO3 - dropped somewhere between 2 and 4, but closer by 2 than 4, so I appreciate somewhere below 3.
PH 8, KH 10.5-11 but Ca 500 and Mg 1400 worries me - nothing added to tank except WC and fish food, some corals in and always measure such high Ca and Mg values.
Is this "dangerous" level? May be salt?
Honestly have no idea how to drop those levels to the desired ones.
 

dacianb

Active Member
Another week-end and time for water change and chemistry...
NO3-0.75 (finally )
PO4- went to shop to buy a test and came back with 3 corals as there was not on stock PO4 tests
KH- 11- 11.2
Ca - 470 (slightly lower than last week, but still quite high)
Mg - 1420 (even higher than last week)
PH - 7.7

Nothing added to tank, except small water change. I still believe is the salt. Next week I will skip the water change and hopefully to go to another shop and buy a salt with lower levels.
Also, finally, I get into mood to take some better pictures (DSLR camera this time). I also lowered the power of light to around 35W to accommodate new corals.

Those pictures are closer than real look/feel of tank. NOTE - no special camera settings (Auto mode with flasher OFF) and light settings as normal. No Post processing either
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Some of my older Euphyllia
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dacianb

Active Member
Last week I noticed some changes to my tank - seems that everything went to some kind of balance - water became extremely clear (even from side of tank looks like there is no water in the tank - I always had a bit of cloudiness / particles in tank), skimmer produce way less than normally, LPS corals became much larger than I know and at least 3 of the large snails released thousands of eggs in the water (ok, created havoc in tank, fishes entered in feeding frenzy), but water cleared back in couple of hours.
In weekend I tested the water and for first time in my life I saw NO3 = 0.00 (RS Pro test). Most probably, this was the reason of changes. I know that is not good too keep it here - now will try to rise it a bit to 0.25, in the meantime I started adding coral food to compensate for lack of nutrients.


The 0.00 NO3 test
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Snail eggs floating around the tank:
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And one of the LPS - being more inflated that ever saw ;)
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dacianb

Active Member
Finally get in the mood of finishing my lights (I plan to add more corals actually, but I lack lighted up areas, so I need more lights).
After reading everything around, discussing with others pros and cons of various approaches and colors, finally ended up with following structure. Will be 2 or 3 such modules over the tank, each capable of 180W. By combining high CRI neutral whites and lower CRI cold whites on 2 different channels I may tune very precise the look of the tank without adding ugly colored LEDs (red, greens, etc
Also on violet range will go on higher range than most lights, mixing 410 and 430 nm LEDs.
Hope will be the lights I dream about :)

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dacianb

Active Member
Each and every diy projects have to start with a piece of metal full of holes ;).
Here is the base plate of one module (3mm Al) with protective foil still on - normally is a mirror like shiny surface;
On second image I installed on it the 2 heatsinks + power boards spacers
Still have to make a second one ( at least) :duh:
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dacianb

Active Member
Tank is looking very nice. Love the lighting it seems like you are putting a lot of effort and time into.
Thanks... I just promised myself that for this tank I will do my best possible... (just for all my "sins" on previous tank to be forgiven :rolleyes: )
For lights.... duh, I am engineer and this is what engineers doing even at home :confused:
 
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