I am sure there is something similar on the market, it's just not targeted at the aquarium market. Standard CFL's don't work with a saltwater aquarium.
For example, I'm currently running a 400Watt Metal Halide on my aquarium. Soft and hard corals as well as many anemones just require so much light at a specific wavelenght.
the other part is that I am programming a pretty sophisticated light controller. it will have a number of different settings and the brain not only will control the lights, it will also control pumps, filters, etc.. it's going to be a complete unit that handles all the electronics for the aquarium, monitor water quality, etc...
The LED's will be highly configurable and even have the option to mimick a "lightning storm" as well as several other weather types. This means I need to be able to manage each led individually... hence the need to create my own lights.
I appreciate all the hints about "premade" lights, but they just don't fit the bill for my project.
I think I have come up with a great solution for the heatsink, and it's cheap and lightweight. You can get a number of different aluminum extrusion patterns on that great big auction site. I am going to pick up a few pieces for about $30 and see how well they will work as the heatsink. If they work well, they will definatley be stout enought to act as the support as well... I'll let everyone know what kinds of temps I get with this setup and try and post some photos.
If it works, this would be a great solution for some seriously CHEAP heatsinks for high power LED's. to the tune of pennies for each LED if you chose to cut up the extrusion and make individuals.
We'll see what happens. Ingenuity is the name of the game, right?! At only a few bucks per LED, I can afford to destroy one or two trying this out!