Pre-planning for upgrading the 8'er, some input on LEDs needed
 

So I am planning a fairly small upgrade to my 165 gal 8'er...................and YES, I can hear some of you saying..........WTF! Here he goes again!!

But when a good deal comes my way............I just can't pass it up:biggrin:

I have made the decision to get the glass cut for a 8' x 2' x 2' INSIDE DIMENSIONS.........roughly a little shy of 240 gals.

Not sure on the sump yet but it will be a much better design then my 165. After my wife seen pics of Mike' 8'er in Manitoba she wants me to build a complete wall unit that will be 12' long x 8' tall. I have a skimmer I really like, 2 MR1 reactors for Vertex Bio Pellets & Carbon, Profilux 2ex controller, probes, power bars & doser & more then enough pumps to provide mass flow but................

My biggest decision is going to be lighting........I would like to go with LED's but don't know much about them. How many LED's would I need? Do I DIY or buy fixtures? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

if its going to be in a wall or have a canopy over it i would DIY and save a ton of cash. you have a profilux so you could use dimmable drivers and a ledcontrol4 module and get the same lighting effects. you can everything from rapid led aside from the ghl module. hell, progressive might even be able to get you everything

It will be a fully inclosed cabinet top to bottom, I have looked at Rapid LED but have no idea what I would need. I know that I am capable of DIY just need some direction.

DOUBLE YOU TEE EFF?!?! Here he goes again! :-D

LED builds consist of a few things:
LEDs
Drivers
Heatsink

Then a few odds and ends here and there to put it all together like thermal adhesive, fans, etc.

We carry all the LED DIY parts and im currently about to prototype a board that is plug in play for my 180g. The 180g will take 3 of these boards, your 8' would take 4. Basically all the wiring is done, all you do is add adhesive to attach it to the heatsink and connect the power supplies.

Not sure how quickly you will need lighting but I should be testing it in the next month or so. www.LEDGroupBuy.com if you need more info.

Check out my sig for LED build (its changed a bunch but it has a parts list of my original design)

See I knew there would be a couple, especially you Kien :twised:


Won't be for at least 3 months before I am ready for lighting so I will check this out, thanks Milad.

If you capable of doing DIY, then i suggest LED for sure. Also if you wall is 12 feet, why not make a 12 feet tank :-), then you won't able to upgrade any further

The wife want me to make side cabinets to store all my SW related crap as she puts it. This will be the last upgrade for this tank so it has to be right the first time. The wall is actually 16' long but I don't want to cover the whole wall.:biggrin:

Why not build a 16 foot tank and just plumb everything into a fish room near by to store everything. It's only logical.

That's just the stupid! Why build a 16 footer when he can easily build a marine park on his acreage!! Bring in some sharks, maybe a whale or two. You could charge admission. :-D

PS. I'm not joking.. Alberta could use a proper public aquarium.