1m Blue LED light strip, installed as moonlight

Hey Guys,

Just installed a 1m blue LED strip on the inside of my canopy against the backboard.

Was R330.00 in total.

Sorry about the pics, from a phone.

The idea is to simulate moonlight so i had the LED's facing the canopy and not the water, it then creates an awsome glow inside the tank and is a very soft light, just enough to see any little critters on the tank floor




I have also removed the Marine Glo that I was using to do this as it was too bright and replaced it with another Flo Glo. Anyone wanna swop a Marine Glo (+- 20hrs use) for livestock lemme know

 

What type of LED did you use? What is the light output? Did you buy it as a unit?

 

Hey Jimmy,

I bought the LED strip from GreenLight LED in unit A21 sanlam business park, Milnerton. http://www.greenlightled.co.za

You can buy in 5m rolls or have it cut to size, they charge per m, and you can cut it every 10cm. There are loads of different colours even RGB which you can get a controller for and change colours with a remote control (pretty awesome). They sell the 12v/24v adapters which you need with the strip, I bought the expensive strip, there was a cheaper one for R125.00 p/m they just didnt have stock.

Way better than the ones at Makro.

You can check the specs of the LED's on there site, they where really helpfull and I would really recommend them to anyone looking for LED's.

The lights come in a silicone strip and you can choose a wateproof one if required.

In the photos I took previously the LED's where facing outwards, I have turned the strip the other way around so the light emitting side is against the wood, it looks even better now as it just creates and awesome glow in the tank without the blinding blue light when you open the canopy. For the first time I can actually sit and watch my little clown pleco's at work

 

This is awesome, I am looking to do this as well, does anyone know where i can get these in JHB?

 

www.hotfrog.co.za http://BestLedLights.co.za/ www.ambiente.co.za

or just search for LED lights in Johannesburg and take your pick.

Most automotive and motorcycle spare suppliers will also be able to assist.

I get mine from an electrical supplier in Pretoria. Awesome savings on power use and much much nicer on the fish. Smaller more compact and cooler too. I'm working on a switch that will switch automatically between day and night for moonlight and sunlight. Will let you guys know when my electronics wiz gets it figured out.

 

Hey Daan,

Speak to @Altum, he has awsome programmable timers, I am using them currently for my lighting. They have 3 outputs which you can set different timing on each output. Works great, I have day on one night on the other and will use the third to control currents during feeding

 

Thanks @Fub4r,
If my son-in-law doesn't come up with one I will! He's kind of pretty good with putting electronic things together!
Daan

 

Add the phases of the moon & it will be perfect

 

You can run a timer for the moon phases, start with three LED Strips, then have one on for 1/4, 2 on for 1/2 and all three on for Full. Then get another timer for the Day, you can run 1/2 your lights for morning and midday all lights running then use the last port for the pump timer during feeding, wavemaker or whaterver

 

Awesome post. I was looking at these led strips on eBay but will now checkout the supplier directly. I would appreciate input from the lighting gurus here as I would like to use these as additional lighting for my jewel and fluval edge, both of which are very bespoke with limited space and ability to mod....

They are rated at 5 watts per meter, how would this compare to t5 ? Par for led is higher (I think). If I had 4m of these in my jewel what do you think this would equate to in t5 ? 20 watts of led = ?watts t5..... Would it be worth my while ?

Should I opt for white or warm white ? Will find out k rating on these ...

Any suggestions or comments would be welcome

Thanks

 

Thanks for the idea, just finished installing one in my tank, pics to follow

 

Pics

 

quite a bright moonlight...but looks neat!

 

My camera made it look quite a bit brighter.

 

Mine was also rather bright, I had to cut the strip down to 10cm to get a nice effect.

 

What are the technical details of the strips you guys bought and how much did you pay?
I got one of the Lumeno strips from Makro for my nano tank and it works perfectly except for a few issues...
1. It's not waterproof. It's water resistant to IP64, which means in the hood of your tank it gets exposed to far too much moisture. So the flexible rubber coating goes milky, and the flexible PCB that the diodes are mounted on is also exposed over time and starts to break down. Mine still works, but it's not working perfectly anymore. Next time I'll definitely get a perspex tube to put the strip into and seal it on both ends with silicone.

You get two main different types of strip lights, SMD5050, and SMD3528:
http://www.prlog.org/10749185-the-difference-between-smd-3528-and-smd-5050-led-strip-lights.html

The former is the better one because it has a higher light density. It's actually 3 diodes in a single package and you should see 3 dots in the yellow part. This also means that you can power up each of those diodes individually if you use a controller. That's how they make the colour changing RGB strips. Those 3 diodes are then Red, Green, and Blue instead of a single colour.

I've seen these strips for good prices online at places like www.4x4direct.co.za and a few sellers on bidorbuy. The important part to check is which LED package they use, the number of LEDs per meter (you get 3 densities), and the packaging (plain pcb, rubber coated which is the one we usually get, or waterproof which is covered in a silicone sleeve that's actualy waterproof).

Anyone bought these locally in Pretoria for under R700/5m roll? Because that's the average price I could find in SA.

 

I paid 250.00 and some odd change for a 1m with the power supply, that was for the 100% waterproof. It's working brilliantly, please check my original post for details. This works much better than the makro strip, tried it.

 

Could you maybe post a close up pic of the strip with the light itself switched off? It looks like you might have a SMD3528 strip.

 

Man ow Man ... not even pay day and must possibly buy filter and light strip.

 

haha donny, i tell you what, ill give you my spare one for free for you to play with