Hmmm if the current is too high for arduino what would you recommend? I was hoping to be able to have the majority of them running at the same time but not all. I was able to get around 175 5mm red leds to blink with the uno, so I figured this many wouldn't be a problem. I have little to no experience with transistors and shift registers, but if you could point me in the right direction on what I should learn that would really help out.