semi DIY moonlights!

[1guydude]

So on my local reef club site...a n00b to the club has opened up and brought back an older thread titled above!
At walmart. in the car section they have lil led lights! Three to be exact that swivel and are on one unit! U need a 120 volt adapter though...which one member found next door at the dollar store and another member found at wall greens...in total niether person spent more than $20!
Im off to wallys on pay day to inspect this and see wat i can pull together. Just thought id get the word out!

 

[snakeblitz33]

Thanks for the info.

 

[2quills]

I'll have to take some pics and show you guys the semi diy leds that I added on my 55g fixture. There are all kinds of leds these days that you can pick up at the auto parts store for your vehicle. Correct, all that is needed is to splice a 12v dc adapter instead of the cigaret lighter plug in. Also, the addapter that I picked up allows you to switch from voltages even lower than 12v volt so they can be dimmed. I spent about $40 for four 12" strips. They make half way descent supplimental lighting. I like having just the leds on in the evening.

 

[2quills]

Here's some shots of my semi diy leds. $20 for two strips of blue and $20 for two strips of whites from the local Auto Zone automotive parts store. They seem to have a much greater selection of different types of leds than some of the other places.
Anyways, these are the strips. I was just looking to add a little bit of supplemental lighting to my fixture. They are dimmed down in this pic.

Here's a shot of the adapter I'm using. Found it at walmart for about $12. I have lots of old power supplies laying around the house but I like this one because you can change voltages which allow you to dim the brightness of the leds. At night I turn them down and the strips double as moonlights. I also wired the strips up to the power supply with quick disconnects to I can easily switch off one of the colors if I want. One of these days I may just wire them up with some small rocker switches.

This is what they do to the camera when they are turned up to 9v (not quite full brightness).

I do get nice color pop out of the blues in relation to the fluorescence in some of the corals. Not quite as extreme as the high power leds, but pretty nice non the less. Unfortunately a can not get a true representation to come through in a pic.
It's a very simple diy.

 

[1guydude]

sweet thxs for the info! Kool easy cheap lighting, maybe not practical but gives a nice shimmer right?

 

[2quills]

Not practical for what, corals? No not really. It was just a cheap experiment for supplimental lighting. They are a nice look when they are on just by themselves and they do add some nice shimmer. A few of my corals open up under them without the pc's on, especially my frogspawn. But anyone with a fish only tank or just just want a little extra fluorescence pop they do pretty good.

 

[1guydude]

ya thats wat i mean! U hit it on the head... hmm...i have to go to autozone anyways for oil and such for the VW so i may be getting some of these!