LED/moon lights???

[monkdaily]

instead of having a pitch black tank i would like to have 4 to 6 blue LED lights that run during the night time. its a 55g tank so its 48" long. i was thinking one in each corner and 2 in the middle top. does that make sense?? or just a simple row. any whoo i was woundering if anybody has or has done a similar setup and how they went about it? preferably something that plugs directly in to the wall. DIY/store bought dosent matter.

 

[0828dawn]

umm, i got 260watt coralife with the lunars on my 55 gallon and it's awesome!
I run the lunars at night as a nite light.
They situate them on the back in a strip of 4 that are equally spaced starting a few inches in from the furthest corner. Now i'm pretty sure you don't want to fork out the cash when you already have lighting, but I thought telling you how their situated on the fixture could possibly help you.

 

[justkris9]

I just made a set of moonlights on Friday--they came out great. I am using five 470 nm blue LEDs. (supposedly 470nm is about the same spectrum of light as the moon).
I have a 5' wide tank and the 5 LEDs cover it nicely. I tried taking a picture last night but it wouldn't take a good enough shot.
I already have to make 2 more sets for my friends.

 

[monkdaily]

this is wut iam tryin to do. but does anyone have pictures of theirs. or a product list/pictures of how it all went together.

 

[imfsub12]

yes a list where you got yourstuff would be very helpfull.. i would like to MOON my tank at night toooo

 

[monkdaily]

i figured out how to do it myself this could take a while but i will make some lunar lights and post the process and equipment used

 

[monkdaily]

here we go. try to make sence of this holla at me if this helps
+/- wire spools, LED lights, D-cell batt., battery holder with +/- wires

power drill or screwdriver to get the metal off the light hood

well i used a ice pick to poke a hole in the metal, and then just used the drill bit to open the hole for the led to fit in

 

[monkdaily]

next i fit the LED in the hole and used super glue to hold it in place

its difficult to take a picture to show how the LEDs should be wired together this is why u must super glue the lights in first. if my science class memory serves me correctly this is called a closed loop circuit. +'s are wired together in a row. -'s are wired together in a row. u cannot have all the seperate +'s and -'s bunched up together and then to the battery wires it must be a closed loop circuit or u will need a battery holder for each LED. if that makes sence

now drill a hole in the back of the light hoodso the two + and - wires can slide through

 

[monkdaily]

this has no light swith so u must add/remove 1 battery to turn on/off.

here is the look in the tank at night. i will be adding another light because i had to off-set the middle light because of the middle brace. the light right now are not evenly disperced and my OCD is driving me nuts but i got the brightest LEDs they had and they only had 3. so i need to go to the other R.S. and get 1 more LED

 

[monkdaily]

tell me what u think

 

[monkdaily]

by the way the battery pack fit flush against the light hood and i just super glued it to the back of the hood

now i realize iam the only one posting here but if you live in the texas DFW area i can throw one together for ya

 

[colette]

I have a coralife lunar on my 40 gallon reef tank and my plate coral is placed underneath one about midway down the tank and noticed that after a while of it being on at night the plate coral pretty much blows up!! The base gets HUGE and the tentacles get small and skinny. I just turned my lunars off a few mins ago and it seems to be getting back to normal. My question is do you think that I should move my plate coral or what do you think I can do to solve this problem? I would never have thought that a small led light could affect a piece of coral.

Thanks in advance for you advice!

 

[jkcrumb]

good job with the DIY lunar setup!!!!!! I actually enjoy my tank the most late night when the lunars are the only lights that are on...........its a whole different world in there at night. Good luck

 

[monkdaily]

thanks. my fish are in hypo because of ick

. so i got a lil bored with the main tank and had to do something moon light seamed like a good project. i cant wait to get the fish back in there

 

[wangotango]

Looks nice. I also DIYed mine with 4 whites and two blues. The light from the whites spread out more, but the blues are more pin-point.
-Justin

 

[rookum]

i have a 55 and a 90 i use four leds per tank. looks great at night. 2 or 3 just wasn't enough for me. have mixed the whites w/ blues and that looks okay 2. gl

 

[monkdaily]

yeah i just got done adding 1 more blue led. so now i got 2 on each side of the split on my 55. and one light is right ontop of my zoa frags i just picked up on sat. and they look way cool under the light. i will post a pic of the tank with the 4th light later tonight

 

[multi-task]

dude that is sooooooooo sweet. What kind of day time lights are you running on that 55 gal? I am sooooo doing that to my tank.

 

[monkdaily]

i appreciate that

. i got a FOWLR so i dot have MH or T5's so during the day i run a Coral Sun Actinic 420. its so blue its almost a black light. but it lights up the sand adn the L/R and fish. then 2 BLue LEDs on each side of the support of my tank at night.

 

[coral keeper]

How much did it cost you to make your own moon lights?