The only thing I would change on my setup is my heatsink material. I bought two 10" x 12" heatsinks from heatsinkusa. Nice heatsink but once I placed my 24 LEDS on it, I find it impossible to increase the density of the lights. So if I wanted to add more lights I would have to remove all the LEDS and rearrange the array. Difficult. Of course I got around this issue by adding two strips of LEDS parrallel to the two banks. More light but Im maxed out by the realestate above my tank.
I think the superior design would be to think of them as t5 lighting. Setup your Leds on 1 inch squared tubing (or better yet u tube) the length of your tank. That way if you need more Led's you simply add more strips of leds. It allows you to very easily change the layout. When you want to adjust your lighting, you can easily remove 1 strip of LEDS, add different colors, different efficiencies, brighter LEDS, to your hearts content.
One thing people dont really think about is what will happen if one LED gets unsodered or has some other sort of problem (trust me it will happen). Well with a linear approach you can simply remove that one problem LED strip and work on it. If you have an entire 12 inch by 48 inch array or even some kind of chasis to hold your array, you will need to remove the entire setup. Just more of a PIA.
So if you think your LED setup requires 120-180 LED's. Build 10 strips with 12 LEDS on each strip, with perhaps and inch gap between each strip. If it is not enough light add another strip or two and reduce the gap.
Just my thoughts on the matter.
Ken
