Looking at building something similar myself, but judging by your pics my fuge is much smaller.
Mind sharing some rough dimensions of your refugium?
I'm not familiar with those dimmable ballast; do they have the LED drivers built in or something like that?
My refugiums in 3 of my set-ups are relatively large and dedicated sumps. These are set up, elevated, and gravity fed and emptied, display to refugium, and refugium to another sump below. Sump below has return pump and skimmer involved. If you look at my threads you’ll get pictures of what I’m talking about. “Double stacked sumps”. I have custom made all my sumps/refugiums, sized according with Ecosystem Aquariums recommendations per Display Tank volume. So in 2 of my set ups, 120gal display, and dual 60gal frag tanks, for instance, the refugiums are 30”x 16” with only 12” height. Actual, mud and chaeto growth area is 22”x16”, so a lot of area to supply light.
I bought everything to put these 2 lights together. Aluminum heat sinks from “Heatsink USA” measuring app. 12”x7”.
The 15 3 watt LED’s, fans, and dimmable driver (which does not require separate drivers), the potentiometer to dim, lenses, and LED adhesive I purchased from RapidLED. The cases were made by me out of plexiglas, and LED’s wired and soldered in sequence. It took a bit of labor and money to built, but in the end I am satisfied with the performance and quality that just doesn’t exist in an equivalent bought fixture.
