Not another diy led setup

[DIYReeferNewb]

I'm planning on building a 10gal reef tank with a 10 gal sump. The problem is im new to all of this and I'm on a budget so most of it will be diy. After some research ive found the lighting setup I would like to build and was hoping to get some input as to wether or not you guys think it will work. I plan to do mostly lps with some hardier sps. Here is the parts I plan to purchase

http://www.stevesleds.com/view_cart.asp

[Ryan Darilek]

We can't view the link... Just shows an empty cart... But you absolutely can't go wrong with Steve's LEDs!!

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

[DIYReeferNewb]

Lol thanks for that. Basically its 3 royal blues 2 cyan 2 neutral white. All 3watt 1000ma. Also have a dimmer driver power supply with cord and their hd heatsink

[DIYReeferNewb]

If there is more information that you guys are needing please let me know. The driver will support 3 strips of 7 leds and the heat sink will supposedly support "as many leds as you can fit" without needing a fan. Trying to leave my options open for adding more leds in the future if I go to a slightly larger tank.

[ReefWreak]

Post an actual list of what you're buying. I bought my stuff DIY from RapidLED, and they were great in helping to walk through how to set them up and the parts you'd need for what you want to put together. If you haven't set up DIY LEDs before, I'd recommend going to the RapidLED site and going to their LED University links, where they have some articles on how to set up LED strings.

For your LED choices, 2 cyan is WAAAAY too much. With the number of LEDs you're doing, I'd probably do 4 RBs, 2 NW, and one cyan, or a mint if you can get it. Since the cost of an extra LED here or there isn't very much, I'd recommend picking up 2-3 additional colors just to put in the mix to play around with. (With RapidLED's solderless LEDs, swapping them out is as easy as unscrewing, unplugging, and replugging and screwing in the new LED, no soldering!).

I like dimming drivers, but make sure that your source for dimming matches the driver (i.e. if you have an Apex or Reefkeeper, you need 0-10v, if you have a bluefish or some DIY Arduino, you need something controlled by PWM).

Hopefully that helps. DIY LED is awesome, is a lot of fun, and allows a lot of tweaking.

[DIYReeferNewb]

That helped a ton thanks for all the input. Was planning on soldering the leds but i think you changed my mind. It would definitely be nice to have the option to play around with different color choices and I will go with only one cayan.

http://www.stevesleds.com/Switching-Power-Supply-LRS-75-48_p_319.html

http://www.stevesleds.com/The-Single-Dimming-LED-Driver_p_212.html

http://www.stevesleds.com/HD-Heatsink_p_334.html

I believe I should be able to run 3 strips of 7 with those parts if i decide to go with a 20 gallon display instead of the 10. I can list the individual leds as well if needed