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Flybynight-
I see a high level of miss guidence involving LEDs.
First, the object is NOT to collect the largest amount of wattage, the object is to get the highest amount of light onto the corals as possible.
With LEDs, wattage and light are shockingly mismatched right now. We have CREE R2 leds that can generate 114 lumens/watt, while the majority of LEDs for sale on the market are stuck in the 30lumens/watt area.
This can mean that 200watts of CREE LED will create the same amount of light as 760watts of typical LEDs.
It also means that the higher surface brightness on the dice of the CREE chips can take better advantage of the optics/reflector placed around it to get that light into the water, as light that doesn't get into the water doesn't do us any good.
LEDs that would be worth useing are about $8/per LED, and you will need about 60 of them. You also need an optic for each LED, which costs about $1.50/optic. This puts you around the $500-600 range, which isn't bad. Now you need a large 1/4" thick aluminum sheet with fans on the back and about 5 x artic silver epoxy kits to mount the LEDs. Then you can solder them up in series chains of 3, and parallel these chains of 3 all together. A single good computer power supply 12v output line and a bucking type adjustable current regulator can be made to power them in a mostly safe mannor.
It's not impossible, but if you don't throughly research this sort of thing, you are definately not going to make it happen.
BTW- 5mm LEDs are rated at either 20mA or 30mA.
3.2vf x 0.02A =0.064watts.
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