LED Aquarium moon light question

[DaMeatMan]

I was browsing through ebay and came across this product LED Aquarium moon light. I was considering building something similar for my 40 gallon tank. My question is this though, would a royal blue luxeon put out roughly the same colour spectrum? The website claims "The frequency output of the LED is 470nm, extremely close to the frequency of natural moon light." Would the royal blue or any other luxeon product be suitable for this type of application? My tank is 3 feet long and i plan to use 3 luxeons that are underdriven to provide a nice soft amount of diffused light that is spread evenly throughout the tank. This is mainly for asthetic purposes in the tank and i think it would look nice and perhaps more natural then the type of narrowly focused light you would get from the 5mm they use in that moonlight. What are your comments or suggestions for this project?

 

[Azreal911]

it doesn't really matter as long as it's some dim blue lighting i think it's pretty much alright. I use a 5mm white nichia 4aa flashlight with a blue filter and it works great. they still swim around at night (i have a 5gallon tank with tetras in there). you should check out myfishtank.net if you want to ask about moonlighting. there's some pro's there about this stuff and some of them are very creative in it.

 

[DaMeatMan]

Cool i'll check that out right now. Last night i took the head off one of my modded mags so that the led was exposed and i turned it on over the aquarium. I came to the conclusion that perhaps 3 luxeons would be overkill for simulating moonlight and would probabally be way to bright. So i think i'll stick with 2 blue original luxeons and not lux III's for the job. Besides they seem to be pretty cheap at future electronics. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Azreal911]

Lux III's?!?! geez that's pretty much like sunlight for the fishes! depending on how deep is your tank is you MIGHT want to stick with nichia's or if you are using 2 blue luxeon 1's you should be underdriving it, moonlight is never that bright out in the lake or ocean. You should be able to see the fishes but it shouldn't be too bright. and if you have a hood with lots of room try incorporating it in there with a drill and silicone glue (to seal from moisture) it should work great. Oh yeah and the silly moonlights they sell you at the fish stores that are incorporated in the hood for like overinflated 3 digit prices are just using an array of 5mm blue led's just so you know. You would probably save tons making it yourself. Enjoy.

 

[DaMeatMan]

Azreal911 said:
[ QUOTE ]
Lux III's?!?! geez that's pretty much like sunlight for the fishes! depending on how deep is your tank is you MIGHT want to stick with nichia's or if you are using 2 blue luxeon 1's you should be underdriving it, moonlight is never that bright out in the lake or ocean.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your absolutely right lux III's would probabally be overkill, i've pretty much decided on using two underdriven lux 1's for the hood. I'm also thinking of incorporating a variable resistor on the hood so i could fiddle with it and get the best possible setting. During the day time i could also use it to bring out some colour contrast in the tank, i don't know if i'll do that yet, it all depends on how it looks and how my fish seem to like it. As for keeping the water out of the electical connections, i'll be using silicon on the wiring and clear paint to coat the entire star board connections to make sure no moisture get's in there. Thanks for the suggestions so far!

 

[koala]

If you have bright aquarium daylights running during the day time, consider this...

A solar panel that charges the batteries during daytime and powers your LEDs at night. Of course you will need a charging circuit and timer that controls everything. Once setup it's completely free of maintainance for a long time.

-vince.

 

[Azreal911]

[ QUOTE ]
DaMeatMan said:
During the day time i could also use it to bring out some colour contrast in the tank, i don't know if i'll do that yet, it all depends on how it looks and how my fish seem to like it.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you can incorporate the Luxeons into it with the white light and if it blends in nicely you should do that. That's how they light saltwater tanks and gives it that slick look when you cant afford a metal halide setup. The fish stores even sell them as a actinic light (sp) lighting at the 10,000-12,000K colour index i last time i remember. I seen them in freshwater setups too and it doesn't look that bad. The blue light is mainly for coral growth or something like that, don't remember cause it penetrates the water better at that wavelength. Please don't quote me on that. but since your lights will be indenpendent of each other you can have them on or off without a problem. Oh and it wouldn't really bother the fish at all, you're gonna be safe and take pics when you succeed.