I don't know where u can get Crees for $3/led. I paid like under a dollar for my bridgelux. Ray over at aquastyle hooked me up. I ran 90 LEDs over my mixed reef 180 gallon. I did 60 royal blue, 15-10000k white, 10-6500k white, and 5-4500 k white. I think I should have done more 6500k. The 6500k looks pure white, where the 10000k looks white with a slight blue tint. I think if you do all 10000k white ur tank will look almost purple. In person my tank looks a lot more natural colored, almost a Radium 20k color. I made my heat sink out of c channel and it doesn't get hot at all, even at 100%. I think people used to make a lot of false statements saying that you need 2 b-lux LEDs to 1 Cree. But now that a lot of people are using the b-lux, they are finding out first hand that those statements are not true. I am going to add 26 more LEDs to my fixture, but not because it's not bright enough, it's to attempt full spectrum. I'm gunna add 5-6500, 5-royal blue, 4- regular blue, 8-420nm actinic, and probably like 4- cyan or green. I prolly won't be running optics on any of those colored LEDs. I actually had to remove a lot of my optics because the LEDs were too powerful. Another thing is buying bridgelux you can afford to buy more LEDs and spread them even across your tank. I have zero shadows in my tank. I went from 3-250w MHs and 2-54w t5s and I honestly can't tell a diff. I have 2 clams, acros, bubble tip nems and do far they are all doing great.
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