Interesting lighting ideas...

[Codefox]

I was reading about the suggested timer settings for a planted aquarium. I was particurally interested in the 5-6 hours on, 2-3 hours off, 5-6 hours on suggestion due to the fact that the lights, unlike the sun are going to provide full brightness no matter what while the sun has dusk, dawn and the like.

As I'd eventually like to add moonlighting and such for my viewing pleasure I was thinking about different DIY hood setups. especially ways to produce a more natural lighting schedule for the fish and the plants. And attempt to keep it reasonably priced. I'm sure people have done stuff like this before but I thought I'd see what y'all thought of it.

Basically just a bank of lights on timers where I could have a dawn and dusk cycle. I don't know how well it would work though as far as promoting plant growth. Doing it with CF bulbs, I could see having small bulbs in ~30 watt increments. Have a little while on 30 watts, a bit longer on 60, then 90 for a couple hours when the two 55s would come on to provide noon for 4 - 5 hours when it would all start stepping down again.

I would bet that some of you out there have some sort of setup like this so how does it work for you? I think visually it would pretty nice.

 

[czcz]

If you are using three banks of lights, playing with color temperature will help your effect, along with moonlights if you have them. Blue coldcathode + 5000K NO is a very nice dusk effect, for example. 5000K NO by itself is a little like dawn.

Limiting the time of intense lighting is, imo, a better way to control algae than broken up lighting periods. It has been said Amanos techniques invlove very short periods of very intense light, to limit growth and algae while keeping color. One day I would like to try medium - very high - medium light cycles, but unfortunately do not have the watts or space to do it right over my tanks. I can tell you that dawn - daytime - dusk - moonlighting lost its novelty fairly quickly for me, and nowadays I just like mixing bulbs for that perfect color. (I am pretty wild about 7100K+9325K, and 6700K+10000K+actinic.)

Hope this helps.

 

[malkore]

Honestly, I wouldn't worry so much about having a lot of incremental light increases and decreases, especially if your lights don't come on until after the sun has risen and the room receives some ambient sunlight. This lessens the 'shock' on fish of having 220watts of PC's cranking on instantly, and is the reason my lights don't come on until about 11am.

On my SW tank, my actinic bulb turns on for an hour, then the second 10,000k bulb comes on. The turn off in reverse order. That tank doesn't have lights on until 1pm.

So, you could use an actinic bulb in your setup for dawn/dusk, then have the rest of the light on for 'normal daylight'.

Another reason I wouldn't worry too much, is that our PC bulbs don't really come close to natural sunlight intensity. For all I know, my 220watts over my 75gal looks like dawn to my plants

Also I've tried breaking up the photo period, and saw no reduction in algae, nor did my plants suffer, but I never had pearling either. Rather than chance low O2 levels, I keep my lights on all day.

 

[workfortheman]

How about this: make the hood a semi-circle above the tank. Install and wire about 50x13watt bulbs. Then, each hour or two have the light pass over the tank, as in from east to west. talk about reaslistic! LOOOOOOL

 

[Codefox]

How about this: make the hood a semi-circle above the tank. Install and wire about 50x13watt bulbs. Then, each hour or two have the light pass over the tank, as in from east to west. talk about reaslistic! LOOOOOOL

Dude, I almost snorted coke out my nose.

 

[Codefox]

If you are using three banks of lights, playing with color temperature will help your effect, along with moonlights if you have them. Blue coldcathode + 5000K NO is a very nice dusk effect, for example. 5000K NO by itself is a little like dawn.

Limiting the time of intense lighting is, imo, a better way to control algae than broken up lighting periods. It has been said Amanos techniques invlove very short periods of very intense light, to limit growth and algae while keeping color. One day I would like to try medium - very high - medium light cycles, but unfortunately do not have the watts or space to do it right over my tanks. I can tell you that dawn - daytime - dusk - moonlighting lost its novelty fairly quickly for me, and nowadays I just like mixing bulbs for that perfect color. (I am pretty wild about 7100K+9325K, and 6700K+10000K+actinic.)

Hope this helps.

Those are some interesting suggestions. As it is right now I'll just be running the PCs on a timer but I figured since it was a DIY kit that I could really expand it quite a bit after I get the plants all in there. I definately want to have moonlighting just because I'm gone most of the day and like to watch my fish...just hard with no light

I'll do some playing around.

 

[Codefox]

Honestly, I wouldn't worry so much about having a lot of incremental light increases and decreases, especially if your lights don't come on until after the sun has risen and the room receives some ambient sunlight. This lessens the 'shock' on fish of having 220watts of PC's cranking on instantly, and is the reason my lights don't come on until about 11am.

On my SW tank, my actinic bulb turns on for an hour, then the second 10,000k bulb comes on. The turn off in reverse order. That tank doesn't have lights on until 1pm.

So, you could use an actinic bulb in your setup for dawn/dusk, then have the rest of the light on for 'normal daylight'.

Another reason I wouldn't worry too much, is that our PC bulbs don't really come close to natural sunlight intensity. For all I know, my 220watts over my 75gal looks like dawn to my plants

Also I've tried breaking up the photo period, and saw no reduction in algae, nor did my plants suffer, but I never had pearling either. Rather than chance low O2 levels, I keep my lights on all day.

Well it wasn't really to reduce shock value as much as it was to reduce the intense lighting period. I guess I don't need to over do it with stepping it up though.

The living room is very dark though by the time the lights come on since all of the windows in my apartment face North West.

 

[muddlehead]

i wake up really early when it is still pitch black so i let my fish wake up with the ambient light from a lamp in the room while im getting ready then i turn on my hood lamps for while im gone, i do the same thing in the evenings, i dont see why lighting patterns would matter to plants anyways, its not like it negatively effects them when they get sudden light changes, it sometimes frightens my fish for a breif period if they are not fully awake yet, but my plants just sit there, they dont seem to be bothered by it

 

[brant]

as for the tipe of lights I would not know much but as far as timers go there is a ton of nifty gadgets out there especaly in the DIY home security dept. and also tons of remote controlers on th market a few good google searches and a little knowhow and the sky is the limit. good luck.

 

[muddlehead]

you could always go full computer with it, my friends parents have a reef tank that is controlled by computer according to the fishs natural habitat, it changes light according to season and weather, on "stormy" days the light is dim, even the moon cycles change according to season and weather, i dont even want to know how much that set them back

 

[Codefox]

That's really nifty I actually thought about that...not sure how that'd work but probably isn't that hard really. But expensive yes. I do have several computers sitting around collecting dust though...

 

[dskidmore]

[quote="Codefox]I definately want to have moonlighting just because I'm gone most of the day and like to watch my fish...just hard with no light [/quote]I used to have that problem, then realized the fish can't tell time. My photoperiod is 11 AM to 11 PM. It's not on in the morning when I'm too tired to look at fish, but is on when I come home and stays on all evening. I go to bed before the fish do.

 

[Codefox]

Well, I want it on when I leave simply because I don't want to feed the fish if they're not paying attention. I may consider adjusting it though.

 

[czcz]

If you are still considering automation, perhaps including water testing and dosing, there has been renewed discussion on the DIY forum here: http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=62897

If you simply want to control timing via computer, you could do it easily with X-10 and some free app running in the background. Timers and a power strip are much cheaper, of course, and dskidmore's advice while feeding in the evening solves your potential issue.

HTH