help a water n00b out

I've been building PC's since you could buy components but I've never messed with water. I just got a Bitfenix Prodigy and was pondering going water, but I don't want to loose the optical bay. Which seems to be the best way to go if you want a good water setup. Today I was about 2 seconds away from ordering the Antec Khuler 920 with 2 Cougar fans off Newegg, then I decided to look into something more high end. I know I could mount that vertically and keep my 5.25 intact. So I figured if I'm willing to spend the extra $$$ I could piece together something better than the 920. I don't really have a budget here, I can't spend a lot right now but I can buy 1 piece a week and just tough it out with stock cooling until I have everything. Here's what I'm looking at - my MB's the ASRock Z77e-itx. I have an i5 3570k & will be getting a new Radeon card. Since I don't want to loose my 5.25 bay I know that's going to seriously hinder my options. Here's what I'm eyeballing anyone feel free to add on/change or toss in some advice.


XSPC RayStorm
Phobya DC12-400 pump
Phobya Xtreme single 120mm Radiator
Cougar 120mm fan for radiator
FrozenQ Liquid Fusion V Series 160mm Reservoir
Heatkiller GPU-X³ 79X0 (with backplate)

Now here's my quandary, I don't think I can fit more than a single 120mm radiator in this tiny case, and I don't think 1 would be enough to cool a CPU + video card. My thoughts are to totally remove the HD cages from the front and mount a 2nd single 120mm for the Radeon and have a separate 160mm reservoir for each rad. Does this configuration even make any sense? I'm going to pull the case apart tomorrow and measure to see if I could possibly fit a dual 120mm rad in the back and/or front. Since I've never touched water I'm all ears for any suggestions. At this point I'm not set on buying anything until I have a bit of advice from some experienced people here.

That's a really sick setup, but the rad takes up the entire top which would leave me without my optical drive, which I use a lot.

I decided to ditch my optical drive and go with an external USB one so I can mount a rad at the top. I've seen a few pics of Prodigy builds where the fans and possibly the rad were mounted outside the case at the top. I can't find any info on how to do this. For anyone who knows Is this a mod that doesn't require a ton of cutting and stuff? It looks really sick imho but I don't have much in the way of tools and I suck with saws and dremels lol.
Edited by quebert - 10/5/12 at 8:34am

another question, my color scheme's white with orange and black accents. I know it's stupidly expensive but is the FFluid XP+ Nano-Fluid UV orange good looking? I found 2 other brands that offer Orange UV and the couple of reviews say they're crummy UV wise. I can't find a review on the XP+ stuff, but it does looks pretty sweet, at least in the UV picture any ways.
Edited by quebert - 10/6/12 at 1:55am

I just stumbled on the Mayhems stuff today, the orange definitely looks great, was all ready to order it + some cougar fans but I read that due to the barrings they use they only really work mounted vertically. I'm not sure if this is true but I obviously need to do more research. Also need to check if you can make the Pastel orange UV.