LED... Build or Buy?

[Wildechild_01]

Okay, so definitely still in the research and decision phase on this one but figured I would throw this up in here and see what people think.

I am dealing with a 72x18x24 tank with a center brace. Leaving me 2 openings 16x33 to get lighting into the tank. I have been looking into LED fixtures and there are some pretty good options out there I think, some of them get pretty pricey though and based on tank construction for effective lighting I am probably looking at running 2 fixtures so lets say if I keep it cheap $1000 for Lights i will be happy with for a while and will support my desire to keep some more SPS corals.

That got me thinking... what can I do for $1000.

After reading though as much DIY LED stuff as my brain could take this morning I started looking around at materials. I'm thinking will probably go with 10W LED's very readily available on the good ole ebay, haven't looked for actual heat sinks yet but I am thinking they will be fairly easy to find as well.

To be fair my biggest hesitation when it comes to the DIY fixture is the automated control. Running separate channels and dimming LED's are nothing new to me but i have never DIY'd a programmable controller. Is there readily available DIY stuff out there for this, or am i better off looking into something like an APEX controller (lets just ignore the budget reasoning for DIY if that is the case) With a bit more reading I'm sure I could track down drivers with the 1-10v dimming control APEX uses, and how to actually wire that up. Just wondering if anyone has any advice on the automated/programmable control side of the DIY process.


Lets assume I am building a 32" fixture for the purposes of these questions as i can simply build 2 or double up for a longer fixture.

How many 10W LED's would you recommend?
I am thinking for each 32" fixture between 15-20 LED arrays
8-10 x 10,000K
4 x 6000-7000K (i'm not 100% certain on these, but worried without them the tank will be too "blue")
4 x 450-455nm Royal Blue
Wondering about adding another colour in here, something maybe in the violet spectrum... lots of commercially available lights throw in greens too, im guessing just for colour balance. I have to say from pictures I actually really like the colour blend in Mikes thread here

I actually feel like that may be way more light than I need now that i look at the list.... hence the desire for the programmable dimming... upside to overkill now is wont need to upgrade lighting anytime soon. Haha

Hopefully some good advice comes out of here, the prospect of a new DIY project related to the tank is pretty exciting itself.

Anyway, thoughts and ideas definitely welcome as well as sources for material would be awesome.