LED moon lights

[Maya]

The hubby and I just hooked up the first of our DIY LED projects. He is making our lighting for the new 125 gallon and we did a trial run moon light for the 75 gallon. So exciting and it looks great. The shimmer is AMAZING and it's great to be able to see the tank at night when we have time to relax.

[hakan]

Hey Maya,

Looks nice,
What kinda leds are you using?
I want to put moonlight in my tank, but i am worried the fish willnot have down time and stress out?
Is there a certain intensity moonlight which you should have or a certain length of time you canhave moonlight on for?

[Grizz]

my moon lights come on 1 hour after lights out and shut off after 3 hrs this gives the tank some down time hope that helps

[Maya]

Our lights are a 453 nanometer blue, 3.2 volts running at 20 milliamps. They are approximately .64 watts a piece and we are running four of them. We had originally placed 6 but it was too many.. So after some re-wiring we are down to 4. They are placed in a sheet of mirrored plexiglas.

[Maya]

They are 5mm lights. We also have 5 mm 10,000K, 1800 mcd whites to put in our new LED lights. They have a 140 degree view angle which allows for even lighting through the tank. So excited about our progress!

[Gregcoyote]

I run a total of 450 one watt LEDs mixed white and blue. Growing elk horn coral and a variety of soft and hard coral. I would never go back to any other type of light. Over 18 years, I bought thousands of dollars of High pressure halide lamps, that were only good for 6 months. Then if I tried to extend their life, I started loosing coral mysteriously. Never had any success with florescent and hard corals. I love the shimmer effect and lack of water heating. Don't use moonlights myself, but love the DIY LEDs.

[Maya]

Greg, what is your ratio of blue to white? We actually are building our lighting system for the 125 gallon and are doing a 2-1. I just posted another thread about it.

[Gregcoyote]

Will post pictures

[Gregcoyote]

Originally Posted by Maya

Greg, what is your ratio of blue to white? We actually are building our lighting system for the 125 gallon and are doing a 2-1. I just posted another thread about it.

The panels are broken into 130 one watt LEDs and about 2/3 of them are bright white, the rest are blue. Three of these light my 300 gallon reef nicely. You can turn on the white and/or blue LEDs independently. I also have one panel on my algae scrubber that is made up of 65 two watt LEDs, blue and white and one panel of 50 two watt LEDs balanced towards the red for plant growth.

[Maya]

That's great. Almost exactly what we are doing. We have 2 panels of 75 1 watt bulbs for our 125 gallon tank for a total
of 150 bulbs. We have a 2 white to 1 blue ratio. According to our research, the light spectrum from the bulbs we bought is almost completely usable by the coral. He has wired them into mirrored plexiglas instead of reflectors. Makes me feel better after seeing your tank... It looks like you could sustain just about any coral you wanted. We wired in the moonlighting in our old 75 gallon to test our design and it worked really well. I LOVE the difference in the shimmer and light quality and we haven't even tested the 10,000K.

[Gregcoyote]

I have had mine going for a year now and I am sure you could do as well or better with a metal halide/chiller system, such as I had running, but the advantages of the LEDs is simplicity and economy.

[Maya]

We are completely disinterested in halides for that exact reason. I don't want to deal with all the problems. And reef keeping isn't the most earth friendly hobby. I don't care to add to the waste anymore than I have to. We love the idea of DIY (it's fun to see how well you can do for a fraction of the cost). I'm thrilled to know that we are
on the right track. We are relative newcomers to the game and everyone has a strong opinion about lighting. With our
moonlighting turning out so well and the fact that you have been using a similar system with success for about a year, Im almost giddy. Lol

[Gregcoyote]

Don't get too giddy. Try them out. Don't underestimate their brightness as it could bleach a coral. I have had good luck, hope you do too.

[Gregcoyote]

From your picture, mine are packed less than 1/2" apart, much closer than yours. Each panel of 130 is about 12" x 18". Is that your current moonlight? Or am I looking at the picture without a good size comparison?
Again, in my humble experience, I found that 1-2 watts of LED per gallon was plenty, where you would use far more if lighting with other sources. The number you quoted seemed like a good place to start. nice thing is you can add more if needed.

[scottayy]

the moonlights are my favorite lighting effect
the way the water movement makes it shimmer is relaxing
i've fell asleep watching it a few times

[Gregcoyote]

I use to have some blue bulbs that simulated moonlight, need to add a few LED strips and do it again because it was cool.

[Maya]

Lol! I'll try to keep it under control. LED lighting is so new and so expensive that it's hard to find anyone who has really experimented with it. A lot of what we've been able to find has come from expensive DIY (you have to Do it our way or it's wrong) kits. We didn't like a lot of what was offered so we went the same route we always take and researched the crap out of it, came up with our own design, and started a build. So far it's working out beautifully. But the one thing we notice over and over is that a lot of folks running the 5 watt bulbs are running them at about 1/2 their capacity on dimmers. So we went with the 1 watt lights in a larger angle and upped the number of lights. We will see how it works. But it does calm some of my worries that you are running a somewhat similar system with some success. I do love the research and design part of the hobby though, trial and error are part of that. Its fun when an idea pans out.

[Maya]

The photo is a three foot section containing 75 lights. We placed a blue bulb every third bulb and are wiring them in separately. White on one plug, blues on one with 4-6 blue bulbs separated for moon lighting on the other tank. The 125 is a 6 foot tank so we plan on mounting two of them side by side for our coverage. The moonlights are just 4 of the LEDs mounted on small strips of the same mirrored plexiglas. They aren't much. We started off with 6 but quickly decided that it was WAY to much light for moonlights so out came 2 of them.

[Gregcoyote]

I think that will work fine. I too like the 1 watt and 2 watt LEDs better. I don't try to dim mine.