got the new tank

its really just your preference and how you want to distribute the light it would probably be easier to get 4 thats what I did and just connected two of them together with two strips of aluminum and 4 rivits. I will take a picture and show you what I did but if you go here and click on the albums at the top right you can see my leds.

 

Here is what I did.

I did this on both sides of the heatsinks for each pair.

 

was there any reason you did it that way instaed of getting 2 longer ones

 

well it was the cheapest thing to do I think it was like $50 for the heatsinks and if i did it another way it woould have been like 60 or something like that but really you should do it anyway you want. you could have each heatsink hang independently like 4 pendents over your tank if you wanted or build something like I did and space them out evenly. mine are to the far sides because I have a large glass center brace about 10'' wide so i had to make it so the lights didn't hit that. but really you could put them all on one if they sell one like that its all up to you.

 

ya I might do 2 of them spaced apart because like you said I have a thick center brace as well, even though its clear I think it would be better to have one on each side. what is the size of your heat sinks when the 2 are together?

 

they are 18'', each heatsink is 4.5'' (or close to it) by 9''

 

I was thinking of going with the 18 inch ones too. does it leave a shady spot in the middle? I know you can get different optics for more coverage

 

if you look at my fts hereyou can see that there is s shady spot in the middle and that is with no optics on it I could hang them or something and that would probably go away but it doesn't really bother me that much because its only shady about halfway down the tank. but it would be ok to grow like mushrooms or zoas or something there maybe even sps I have a little piece there now to see if it will grow.

 

cool thanks for all the help. i was just considering LEDs at first but now Im getting pretty excited about it. Ill be doing some good research within the next few weeks thats for sure. how much would you say the whole set up cost

 

haha ya thats the way i was too and then I started seeing how much it would cost and it really wasn't that much more than what I wanted (6 bulb tek) so i went with leds. and all of it was probably $450, I made the fixture out of some cherry wood I had and put some finish on it so it would match my tank and stand and bought 4 regular light switches to put before the drivers so I could have only the blues and what not. but If i was going to do it again I would get the dimable driver set for the extra $50. so good luck with deciding on your lights and on your tank hope I helped.