LED Moonlights

[blainep]

I had a brilliant thought today, everyone's getting all excited about their LED moonlight creations.

Suddenly it seemed to simple to be true.

So I jump into the wagon and head over to Canadian Tire and pickup a string of outdoor LED minilights and an extra timer.

Now I know my tanks aren't arranged like other peoples ( See previous threads ), but I'm thinking that adding the lights in shouldn't be to difficult.... famous last words .;)

I'll put it together this weekend. Pics to follow.

[Soggybottom]

Hmm, good idea!
How many watts is the string? much much was it?
I wonder if you can dim the LEDs? I have a couple of gadgets at home (X10 if anyone is familiar) that enable you to dim an incandescent light according to a schedule. If the leds are dimmable, instead of a timer you could plug them into the gadget and effectively create a low-budget version of the crazy expensive solaris system. Like get a couple of strings, put different coloured lights in each, and recreate the natural light by dimming each at certain times....

My puffers would love a dimmed system. I had them under flouros (not dimmable) and every time the lights went off, they would go berserk and crash into stuff and make me think they were about to jump out of the tank. I also seem to remember something about being able to breed corals if the light cycle can be perfected...

[Melody]

A gadget I don't have....hmmm.... can't wait to see how this one goes.

In the meantime, Mr. SB, try a lamp beside the tank with a dimmer, or even without. Then you can turn off the tank lights and still gradually lower the light.

I don't have any light sensitive fish, although it does startle them sometimes. Most of mine are such piglets they're too busy getting to the top of the tank in case I'm about to feed them.:SharkSharkShark!:

[blainep]

Well, I ran into a snag, I need to find a different way to install the string of lights than I had planned. There isn't enough room to put them on the way I planned.

Once again, on to plan'B'. :eek:

I'll keep ya posted on the results.

[Soggybottom]

Good idea Melody. If you want info on the gadget just PM but I don't wanna derail the thread. Basically its a controller that hooks up to your USB and also plugs into the wall. It sends on/off, dim or other signals along the power lines in the wall, and on the other end you have a little box that you plug lamps or appliances into that recieves the signals. You can have up to 256 units plugged in and controlled by the program even when the computer is off. Lotta potential for automated fishrooms! The little reciever boxes are like 12 bucks or something, so even cheaper than timers... the control unit I think was $70

[Melody]

Awesome idea, thanks for the explaination.

Blaine, good luck with Plan B!

[blainep]

So I got my brain in gear today and got to work.

I ran 4 strings of lights, 2 on each level, one blue and one white.

With a mountain of timers, I have the white lights on an hour before and after the main lights come on and the blues on thru part of the night.

http://www.calgarycommodore.com/tanks/n1.jpg

That's a shot of the whites, hopefully giving a dawn/dusk effect to the tanks.

http://calgarycommodore.com/tanks/n2.JPG

A shot of the blues. Tanks are nearly completely dark.

http://calgarycommodore.com/tanks/n3.JPG

The silhouette of a Black Molly in the 'moonlight'.

http://calgarycommodore.com/tanks/n4.JPG

A picture of the string of lights.

Maybe it's overkill trying to simulate night and day for the fish, but it's not like I had anything better to do.

Even if the fish don't care, I like it, though it made a mess of my nice clean look to the wiring. Adding 4 extra cords, 3 new timers makes it nearly impossible to look neat and tidy.

[Melody]

I like it - a cool effect if nothing else, and a if it helps the fish even a little, why not?

[Jonesy]

this may be the inexperience in me speaking but what about those Lunar glo lights used for reptiles?? Maybe for the amount of tanks that Blaine has they aren't the answer, but for people with one or two tanks, would these be an option?

[blainep]

I'm not familiar with the lunar glow lights, but by their name, it sounds like a similar idea to commercial versions of what I did.

The effect in the tanks is really cool, the tanks have about as much light as a clear night with a bright moon.

The amount of livestock that is active at night is surprising. Shrimp are very active.