DIY T5

[Slick Fork]

Try ModularLED, they've got a website in the sponsorlist. It's DIY but without soldering... really customisable as well.

I'm not sure what other commercial fixtures could be recommended in the 300 and lower price range. The AI sol would fit your requirements but that's at $400ish plus the controller. It's what I'm saving for incidently.

[t-rex]

Will do, i guess the question now is what should i look for in lighting? by this i mean because my tank is tall, how many lumens or total wattage should i be looking for..

[Slick Fork]

I'll leave that one to the DIY experts,

Since the tank is tall I would think the better question you should be asking is about lenses for better penetration

[t-rex]

by that essentially your saying the color?

[Slick Fork]

Oh, sorry no.

Colour will be handled according to how many LED's of blue vs. white vs. other colours such as red and green you put on. lenses focus or spread out the light. For example with your tank you might want a narrower lense on some LED's to give you penetration but a wider lense on other individual LED's to facilitate colour blending

[t-rex]

ok, so after a little research i think im going to use:

the 29 gal biocube kit, even though i don't have a cube!
added to the kit im going with 2 red and 1 green cree LED...

Does anyone know if the kit comes with the XP-E's or the XP-G's?

[sphelps]

Originally Posted by t-rex

ok, so after a little research i think im going to use:

the 29 gal biocube kit, even though i don't have a cube!
added to the kit im going with 2 red and 1 green cree LED...

Does anyone know if the kit comes with the XP-E's or the XP-G's?

Careful with the reds and greens ideally these should be independently dimmable or choose very wisely. I have reds and greens in my fixture, to get the color I like I'm running about 4Ws of red and 3W of green with 100W of blue and 45W of white.

I'd stick with the Rblue, blue and cool whites for now in the 3W range. Then for reds and greens look into some lower power strips that can be easily added and dimmed. There are a lot of RGB style LED strips on the market right now, someone recently posted one from Ikea.