Diy led hood = cheap $$$$

[billberet]

Hey fish lovers,
i had a few requests to post how i do my LED hoods.
first, supplies,
here are the LED, i got both white and blue
Amazon.com: 5 Meter Reel Warm White 2700k Flexible LED Ribbon 300 Leds 16 Ft by LEDwholesalers, 2026ww-27k: Home Improvement
to power the LED, i use this, each driver can push the entire roll of LED's
Amazon.com: Ledwholesalers 30 Watt LED Power Suppply Driver Transformer 120 to 12 Volt DC Output, 3207: Home Improvement
first off, take your old hood apart, there will be a flashing inside that you can remove, remove it because that will be the new housing for your LED strips.
Here is my finished light hood, i hang it up when i am doing water changes or maintenance on tanks.

i measure the led strips and stick them to the flashing, they have double stick tape on the back, so it's just peel and stick.
i put some tape at the ends where the connections will be.
solder the positive and negative to each strip connecting them in series

the finished product will have your LED's all connected, then i add a little tape to cover the ends

i added a deans connector to the power supply this way when i have to disconnect the lights, it's simple.

i then added blue lights and connected them to another driver, this way i can run white and blue independent of each other.
i use blue and white during the day, and at night they go to all blue. (my lights are connected to my home automation system)



the lights are not rated for plants, but they look great if you just have fish.
enjoy, hope this helps someone.

[meegosh]

Any full tank shots with the lights on (or are the lights on in the pic above)? Just curious, why couldn't you retrofit everything into your hood to make a cleaner appearance?

[billberet]

here is both blue and white led's on, gives the water a nice glow. brings out the colors in the fish. when i use full blue, it's like the ocean at midnight.

[billberet]

here is the full light on,

as far as being clean, i thought it was pretty tidy.
i took the insert out of my hood and added the LED's to it.

[billberet]

oh that white bar you see in the pictures, i have super bright led's attached to it, simulates lightning when i flash them on and off when i run my storm program.

that was version 1, currently i got rid of the bar and just stuck the super bright led's in with the existing ones. they flash at random and trigger a thunder (sound) event. it's in beta right now, but a least it works!

[meegosh]

After looking at your other thread I realized this is an in-wall tank so you never see the fixture. I was just thinking you could have added it to the existing hood, instead of ripping out the reflector and just using that.

That looks nice and bright with full lights! Good job!

[billberet]

ahhhhh yea, if it was in the open, i would have kept the existing hood and gone that route. but since it's behind the scenes i was able to do it this way. and when i do maintenance, i suspend the lights above the tank via a chain, since the hood is super light i have no issues.

then it makes cleaning and maintenance a breeze
as you can see below, keeps the hood out of the way.

[billberet]

here's a better pic of the lights.

the pic above shows just the white, but this pic shows both blue and white on, you'll notice the light becomes softer. and the fish become happier, lol

[Island_Emt]

Nice job!

[Passatryde]

What spectrum is ideal for a planted tank? I'm very interested in doing something like this but how did you pick those leds specifically?

[billberet]

These LED's i show above are for FISH ONLY tank, they are not the right spectrum for live plants. LED's are not really used for planted tanks, Well, primarily, the reason is cost. You can get LED fixtures for growing live plants, but they cost an arm and a leg. And another leg! Very expensive at anywhere from $4-10 an LED, plus costs for heat dissipation fans and heat sinks, and wiring, and controllers, the larger the aquarium the less feasible this becomes.


I would stay with the fluorescent for a planted tank.

[Passatryde]

Originally Posted by billberet

These LED's i show above are for FISH ONLY tank, they are not the right spectrum for live plants. LED's are not really used for planted tanks, Well, primarily, the reason is cost. You can get LED fixtures for growing live plants, but they cost an arm and a leg. And another leg! Very expensive at anywhere from $4-10 an LED, plus costs for heat dissipation fans and heat sinks, and wiring, and controllers, the larger the aquarium the less feasible this becomes.

I would stay with the fluorescent for a planted tank.

I was looking at some led strips with 6500k output ( which I read is ideal or plants) and they are 5m and about the same price as the stuff you showed. You think it would work?

[Passatryde]

Originally Posted by Passatryde

I was looking at some led strips with 6500k output ( which I read is ideal or plants) and they are 5m and about the same price as the stuff you showed. You think it would work?

Like this...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/5M-Waterproo...ht_2351wt_1002

[billberet]

there are several factors that go into lighting.

LED lights with proper Kelvin, Nanometer, PAR & most importantly PUR
Photosynthetically Useable Radiation. It is also known as "useful light energy"


LEDs often make unaware aquarium keepers think that these LEDs will work for their planted or reef aquariums when in reality these LEDs are not powerful enough to keep photosensitive aquatic life. The truth is that there are only a handful of LED light fixtures that can properly light your high light need aquarium.

i would say those LED's would not work, but you can do a test if you don't mind loosing a plant or 2 in the process. set up a second tank with a plant and run those LED's. In my opinion i don't believe they will survive.
but i am far from an expert and do make mistakes, which is why i say to run a simple test first and see your results before you do an entire tank.

[billberet]

time for the 40 gal to get some LED's

i got a piece of aluminum flashing and bent it to size, then sprayed a reflective color to the underside. I left the top white, no need to change the color.

soon it's time to stick the LED's

[billberet]

new LED hood finished for the 40gal. blue and white LED's mixed in alternating rows. works great