TonyD

You're welcome. I'm glad someone could use it. Hope everyone makes it out of this ok. Keep us posted.

Andy, Looks great! That's quite a collection of toys you got there.

I have 72 CREE 3W LEDs over a 6' x 2' tank. It's 36 Cool White and 36 Royal Blue. I have 3 dimmable Meanwell drivers and 3 10"x20" heatsinks. $205US from China seems like a good price, but check everything to make sure it's the real CREE 3W LEDs and not a knockoff. I paid well over $205 for my setup and DIY it myself.

As a member, you also have access to people who have built these fixtures before and can help you. Where are you located?

Never. First time drilling. It went well. Next time I would put a bucket underneath the hole so that when the glass hole drops, the bucket can catch it along with all of the water.

Dave and Carla, Thanks for getting the glass bit to me! You guys are awesome. Tony

Thanks for the offers. With gas prices, it might be cheaper to buy them online. Anyone closeby (Ashburn, Leesburg, Sterling) that would have glass hole bits before I order from glass-holes? Size would be 1 3/4" and 2 3/8".

You Might Be A Reefer If.......you eat your fish food. Any guess who does that?

Assuming the constant current of the driver is near the max value the LED can handle, divide the DC output of the driver by the forward voltage of the LED.

Jason, Are you looking to dim each set of 4 LEDs individually or dim each color individually? I see in your drawing that you have 3 sets of 4 LEDs for white and 3 sets of 4 LEDs for blue. Each color can be wired in series and all you would need is a dimmable driver for each color.

I'm looking into drilling a 90g tank. Does anyone have glass hole bits for a 1.25"/1.5" bulkhead and a 1" bulkhead? Let me know if you have bits for that size that I can borrow. I can pay with frags. Thanks!

I have a dedicated tank with a porcupine puffer and yellow boxfish. I threw in some of my pest corals like GSP, zoas, xenia and blue mushrooms to see how they'd do. Does that not make it a FOWLR tank anymore?

You can dim the blues on 1 dimmable driver, the whites on another dimmable driver, 2 10k pots, a 10V DC power supply.

haha...so true. My wife is always worried that I'll get killed going to someone's house to buy a frag. Or having a stranger into my house to buy a frag from me.

I used these fans for my DIY LED and paid $6 each. Seems price has dropped to $4. http://www.amazon.com/Kingwin-CFBL-012LB-120mm-LED-Case/dp/B003MDXCGQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1304009055&sr=8-1-spell From rapidled for a 2 fan setup: 12V DC adapter - $10 DC jack adapter - $3.50 Fan Y adapter - $3.50 I don't think you need the variable controller. I always run mine at full speed. Extra cooling is better than too little cooling. How many fans are you planning on running? If you really want to use the Meanwell driver to run the fans, look at the current output of the meanwell driver and the spec requirement of the fans.

5" above the water. There's a bit of spill over. I have a 10" wide heatsink so it's a broad spread.

I don't think optics are necessary either. I tried them and took them off. I like the color blend better with no optics. My tank depth is 28" and the LEDs reach down to that depth just fine.

Reefoholic, As Tom said, call Coralife and get confirmation. Safety first, never assume. If it's ok to do so, you can get tempered glass plate and cover the bulb. There are mirror clips you can buy at Home Depot/Lowes to hold the glass plate in place. I did this when my old DE MH fixure glass plate shattered.

I went back and looked at the picture again. I missed the glass cylindar over the bulb. I'm used to seeing a plate of glass over the bulb as well. Learned a new configuration.

You have a double ended MH bulb. The glass tube over the MH is not UV shielded. You need a glass plate over the double ended bulb to provide UV shielding. You can go blind if you stare into the bulb without UV protection. On the contrary, the glass on mogul type bulbs are UV shielded and don't require a glass plate. I couldn't tell from your picture if there was a glass plate over the DE bulb or not.

If you are considering going with LEDs, I would suggest you take a look at someone's tank with the same setup that lives near you to see if you like it and ask questions.

If you're ever a suspect in a murder, this statement will come back to bite you.

You're welcome. Glad I could be of help.

I have about 5-6 34 gallon trashcans with wheels and lids that I used when I moved my 175 gallon tak to my new house. I have only used them for moving rock, sand and some water. You can borrow them for your move. I'm in the Lansdowne area, close to Ashburn.

Tip is always positive. Sleeve is always negative...standard electrical format. They always make touching the positive more difficult so you don't get shocked. In your DC jack adapter picture, the long leg is negative. The center tip connection is positive. If you want to send it to me, I can have it done in an hour. I just built Sean (F&F) a dimming circuit. If he can open it up and take a picture, that would help.