Still looking

Aquarium 24 LEDs Dimmable DIY LED kit with optics

4 of these! $400, everything is included! no more bulbs to buy! Then when you get to the end of that tunnel, ya can upgrade! good luck in that!

 

What do you mean by "right" combination of colors? they have the same spectrums T5 does! plus ya can dim the whites and blues indepent of eachother to change the look of your tank as you like!

 

or get two of these. i currently have one of em, and i love it. i would say get two of these instead of the wave point, which looks exactly the same, except you get a timer on this and 6 moonlight LEDs

http://www.amazon.com/Deep-Blue-Solarmax-T5HO-Light/dp/B003I5QQAM

 

As far as natural white and cool white they have different spectrum's, or maybe I'm completely lost.

 

nah you're fine! Most get the 10k whites with the royal blues! There are a wide variety of lights! Most seem to go with a 60% royal blue and 40% cool white ratio! But what's cool is you can dim them as you want to get the look you want!

 

I suppose the hard part of doing a complete diy is figuring out what degree lens,
based on fixture height and avoiding spotlighting?

 

they guys at rapidled will help ya out with that, just shoot them an email about your tank, what you want to grow and they'll tell ya what optics, what height, what heatsinks etc!

 

Thanks cosmo! They hooked me up with some info. I plan to grill their minds a little bit more but I should be in the $500 dollar range for this build so i plan to go for it!

 

Cool bro! Enjoy a DIY! still maybe shoot reefwerks a email if ya decide to plug and play! look forward to wathcing the build

merry xmas'

 

I'll get with reef works at a decent hour when the sun comes up. I will hopefully have pictures of my diy sump tomorrow. Sump, stand, and then lights is my build order as of now. Sump maybe two or so weeks on the lights, thanks for all of the advice. Hope you had a Merry Christmas as well!