DIY T5

[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.

[sphelps]

In terms of other lower priced options worth looking at:
Panorama Pro LED Modules
PAR38 LED bulbs
Vertex Illumilux II LED Fixture
AI Sol Nano

In terms of DIY you could get away with as little as 18W of LEDs and keep plenty corals under that amount of light in that tank. Personally I'd go with double that or more and stick with cheaper alternative LEDs. Take a look here for around $150 you can get everything you need minus wire and heat sink to have 3 channels of color (Royal blue, blue, cool white) at 7 LEDs per channel (63W total) and you'll have individual dimming control for each channel. Plus the drivers are PWM ready so if you add a controller later on or build one they will work with that as well. If you don't see something you want like the straight blue LEDs just ask, not everything is on the site.