Anybody done aquarium lighting?

[darthdan]

I want to make my own LED aquarium lighting setup cause the commercial ones are ungodly expensive like $500. Crazy.

I'm pretty sure i can do it myself, but am wondering what would be the best setup to use.

I'm wanting to do a mix of full daylight spectrum and some royal blues for the main lights and then a couple of blue lights for at night. As far as keeping each set on for about 12 hours what would anyone suggest as far as which LED's to use and heatsinking them?

[Kal El Rah]

I want to make my own LED aquarium lighting setup cause the commercial ones are ungodly expensive like $500. Crazy.

I'm pretty sure i can do it myself, but am wondering what would be the best setup to use.

I'm wanting to do a mix of full daylight spectrum and some royal blues for the main lights and then a couple of blue lights for at night. As far as keeping each set on for about 12 hours what would anyone suggest as far as which LED's to use and heatsinking them?

It sounds like you are wanting to use LUXEON LEDS. I would suggest using regular 5-10 mm leds instead on a power supply. 12 hours a day is nothing as they are mostly rated at 100,000 hrs. you'll be dead by the time these stop working(j/k).

mass quantities can be had on fleabay with resistors very cheap to run off a 12v dc power supply. You can parallel them together and use clear tubing to use in underwater placement.

just a suggestion.:)

[cannibal869]

This is a link to a subaru car forum, but perhaps you will find it useful?
I think you should be able to see the thread without having to join up...

http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1709240

[TimeRender]

Search around on instructables.com. I know a few people over there have done relevant projects.

[Revan]

if you just want to light up your aquarium for show then go for it. but if you want to rely on leds to provide the necessary light and energy needed to support the life of live rock or soft coral then you have the wrong idea. this is of course if you have a salt water aquarium. if you have a fresh water one then never mind ;)

[darthdan]

Well, I have a salt and a fresh tank. But the salt is just fish, crabs, and snails. No coral.

I was just wondering because the actinic lights I have seen are around 420nm which is pretty close to a royal blue. And I know you can get full daylight spectrum LED's from Seoul. I figured maybe 5 daylight and 3 blues for a normal array? I am just not wanting to solder that many of the little piddly ones together to make an array.

[Revan]

well then yea that would work fine. But because seouls can be REALLY bright, you might want to put a sheet of really thin tissue paper so the fish are protected from looking directly into it. Because that would fry their retinas; just anything that gets the job done.

[chase]

Yeah...having a bunch of blind fish sounds like a bad idea....

[darthdan]

Yeah I was thinking of using some kind of diffuser... not sure what I think at this point.

[Revan]

try wax papper.