Hey Bruce! Thank you very much for the info! I definitely like this as well. Everyone has been very supportive in this thread and I appreciate it! I was looking into the up boards, but I think I might be confusing it with something else, can you please elaborate? Also, would the LDD-H drivers and mini controller be used with an APEX controller? Thanks for the input Bruce
Sorry to be confusing. There are a few ways to drive and dim LEDs. One way is to purchase a combination power supply/driver such as the Meanwell ELN series. You would use one of these on each channel and could accommodate some number of LEDs, depending on the sum of the voltage required (usually 12-13 individual LEDS for the 48v driver). These can be dimmed by 0-10V (Apex or potentiometer) or PWM (Bluefish and others), depending on which driver you purchase (a few of the higher cost ones can be dimmed by any of the 3 possibilities).
Alternatively (and perhaps more cleanly), you can buy a single power supply such as the Meanwell SE-350 and a board that has one or more Meanwell LDD-H drivers, one for each channel. A 5-up board has spots for 5 LDD-H drivers. You select the LDD-H for each channel based on the current capacity of the LEDs on that channel; the number of LEDs is determined by the maximum voltage the driver can output (- 3v for the LDD itself). That is, a LDD-H driven by the 48V SE-350 power supply has ~45V available for the LEDs on that string. These drivers are PWM and require either a PWM controller (Bluefish, Storm, Tyhoon, etc) or a 0-10V to PWM adapter to adapt to your Apex.
I started with a RapidLED Nanocube retrofit kit that used 2 x ELN48 drivers and potentiometers. This works, but basically runs as an on-off. The LEDs are old school, 12 royal blue and 12 cool white. These grow coral well, including birdsnest, montipora digitata, a no-name green acro, bubble-tip anemones and various LPS. For my next build, I selected individual LEDs (UV, hyperviolet, royal blue, blue, neutral white, cool white, warm white) put them on a RapidLED deluxe fixture and purchased a 4-up board and the SE-350 power supply above. This is above my 75g corner and is driven by a Storm controller. I get sunrise, sunset, automatic dimming which is nice. All sorts of corals grew - the tank is currently down for a new stand and rescape.
My newest build (150g 60 x 24 x 24) uses 6 x Acrostar 20K blue Pro pucks on a Makers 48" heat sink, driven by two 6-up boards made by O2surplus. I only use 4 channels on each board since that is all I need for the 4-channel pucks. This was intended to be controlled by my Apex, but I had some difficulty making it work so I punted and got a Bluefish mini controller. The Bluefish is VERY nice, far better than the Storm. Unfortunately, allowing the night light to follow the phases of the moon has caused my
Pocillopora damicornis (that was no problem for a year in the 75g) to go completely berserk; there are now dozens of new colonies all around my 150g tank that I need to eliminate. This tank also has 4 x 80 W T5 supplemental lights, which may be a factor here.
At the end of the day, what matters is how complex you want the build to be and how flexible and/or updateable. If you do a DIY build, you can change it to your liking over time as you learn more about what your tank requires and your aesthetic preferences. I have swapped out individual LEDS on my 75g build to customize the spectrum a bit (replaced original deep red and green with first warm white and now neutral white and lime). Your upfront commitment in time, energy (and potentially frustration) is high but you will learn a lot and gain some satisfaction with a job well done.
With a commercial product, you have a warranty together with some degree of flexibility and customization (depending on which product you buy). You will probably spend more money (from a little to a LOT), although, some inexpensive imports cost less than a DIY build. You may do well with one of these or you may not. Experience is varied on the forums. Some people love the cheap imports and swear by them, while others have been burned repeatedly (failing LEDs, power supplies, controllers, etc) and switched back to the higher-priced established brands. I am a DIY guy so the choice was easy for me.
I hope this helped.
Bruce
