What kind of urchin did you put in your 12g AP? I have a 12gAP as well and have been a long time reader of your thread. Curious to see how you do with your LED hood. I've considered it too, but I want to see results and waiting for prices to come down.
My buddy has a black long spine...but it's bigger than a softball. But it's beautifully.

I put in a little Tuxedo urchin. Its the classic black and white one. I would love to see how a blue and white would look under the LED's but I couldnt find one.

LED's. You know I have really mixed feelings about it. I really love how you can dial in the exact color temp you want. The only problems that I have had is with my corals placement. The problem is I had all the corals placed and use to the PC in the stock hood. Now that I have the LED's the corals are either not opening up all the way, or are slowly moving down the rocks. My croacia "spelling?" clam has bleached to a pale purple rather than the deep blue that it normally was. Please Please keep in mind that I have been so busy with my work that this little tank has really been put on the back burner. Its sad to say but I have let this thing go 2 months w/o a waterchange. Now the rocks have a bit of algea one it and the sand has a bit of dinos on it. Now that I have time I am really devoted to geting it back into shape. I'm doing 2 gallon W/C's a week and dosing Bionic three times a week. That is to spike the systems alk and mag levels to kill the dinos off. The dinos are about 50% of what they were.

There is so much I guess we all don't know about LED yet. As far as placement goes, I saw the best demonstration at my last local reef club. They had a speaker named Wingo, who is a "LED master builder", show how much par is lost at the slightest angle away from vertical. It truly just blew some people away.Glad to hear your back in the swing of things here.

Time to tickle the thread again.

I am glad to say that the tanks mods are finally complete. Well all exept the new floss tray that I am gonna build for the 1st chamber. But that stuff is boring. My finaly mods were to add two 3 W UV Led's and the 700 Ma Buck Puck. Oh and finally topping off those pots with nice metal knobs.

Final thoughts of the UV's In the day they totally blow. The color that they add are not worth the $40. Now after the lights go off the night light affect may be the coolest addition. I dont know yet. Tonight will be the test. Upsettingly so one of my 120mm Silent X fans has begun to growl. That makes me fussy. I have to poke it with a toothpick to make it hush. I knew I shoulda ordered one extra of each fan. GRRR!

The health of the tank has totaly turned around. The formentioned dinos were in fact not dinos. John M took a look at them and noted that they could actually be a stringy form of cayno. With the upped W/C's and the small addition of a little Red slime remover they are gone.

The little urchin "figaro" has really became a wonderful addition to the tank. Algae stands no chance against it. Oh and it really takes care of the coraline. I know I am strange, but I actually do not like the look of coraline all over the back wall and the rocks. I can however control how much he eats. Figaro really loves lettuce. So about once a week I will give it a 2" piece to munch on. The little booger will do a number on stuff thats not secured to the rocks. It was a daily thing of putting stuff back. But a bit of glue took care of that.

Hopefully this Sunday I will be getting a much anticipated frag pack from Max. I think he is interested in 50lbs of Calcium chloride as part of a trade. Once I figure out how to use this friggin new Cannon xsi I will take some pics. I tried for hours last night and came up with one. Time to read I guess.

Okay so after lookin at the tank at night with the UV's on I still cannot decide. In the day the extra pop of color was NOT worth the $$$$. I guess they do make a decent moon light. But I could have just left in the stockers and had that. The colors do pop in the dark and about 2% more in the day.

So conclusion on them. I guess for the gadget nerd in me they are cool. Actually its cooler to say I have them then to actually show them. Cause uncool nerds would be like behind my back. But to be fair in all I do only have two UV leds. So upping the number may do more and I would be happier. But so help me. I am not about to pull that sink out and drill/tap more leds onto it. If I do get a wild hair up my nose I will order those thrermal pads that are sticky and do that. Only due to the center of my sink has a crazy hard section in it that you cannot tap by hand w/o breaking taps.

Hey, its been awhile but can we get an update/conclusion on the LEDs in general. I saw a few posts ago you said it was hard to get the corals adjusted, happy and open to them, has that turned around? I have just gutted my AP12 hood thinking I want to to LEDs but maybe I want to go with something more tried and true.