Sps lighting question

[jeff.l]

So I may have fallen off my rocker but I am going to be doing a nano sps tank.  I will be building a diy Doser and will be testing parameters almost daily at least until things are properly where they want to be.  I will be using an 8 gallon bio cube and I wanted to know what kind of lights I should use.  I would prefer to stay away from open top.  Was thinking the retrofit kit from rapid led.  I will not be doing any finicky spa, would just like to keep the basics and get some good color out of them. 

Thanks,

Sent by little green men....

 

[davesolo29]

i would go with a par38 bulb

 

[Salty Cracker]

the par bulb is a nice easy way to go, although I may have a 12-bulb heatsink here that might fit better. 

I think sps would be quite a challenge in an 8gallon.  They're just so susceptible to water stability that even one water change could rtn the whole bunch...

 

[jeff.l]

That is part of the reason I want to run it with the top on instead of open top, I won't have the ability to use an ato because of placement and want to continue to do the lid.  Will the retrofit kit work as well as the par38s?

Sent by little green men....

 

[Salty Cracker]

Well technically a par 38 is just a mix of 12 led's with optics, more or less, so 12 LEDs on a heatsink should be similar, just spaced out a bit more. 

 

[jeff.l]

Well I just did some measuring, an AI SOL would fit under the hood. 

Sent by little green men....

 

[Victoss]

I have both the par38 bulbs and a biocube29 kit from rapid and I like the simplicity of the par38 bulbs but the colour on my retro is much better. The problem of course is if you have the time for a diy. They both technically should function the same way except that the LEDs on the par38 bulb can only be run at the max of the lowest LED (600-700ma for the uv compared to blue/white at 1300-1500ma) where in a retro build it depends what LEDs are on what driver but usually you can get the blues/whites up to their max. You probably wont run them at max any ways so it's not a big deal. (I got mine around 40% but have extras on it) Then there is the dimming too, you only got a manual light/fan dimmer for the par38.

The sps in my nano are doing great and the frag tank (par38 bulbs) seem a little bleached. I got a build thread on KWAS if you haven't seen (link in signature) but there is no updated pics yet, I may try and post some but I recently cut a tendon in my finger so haven't been able to do much.