led diy light

[tazzy695]

hello all I noticed the other day at walmart that they were selling LED christmas lights at walmart and was thinking of buying a couple of strands and gluing them into a piece of wood that had tightly drilled holes that were fairly close together and placing the bulbs in there to see if it would be bright enough for the corals in my tank

as the led would be much cheaper to run than standard floresent or mh please give me your thaughts on this :hammer:

 

[currentking]

on the other hand I think it may work. well at least it will get your fish and corals into the holiday spirit.

 

[killingseed2000]

they might light up your tank, not sure by how much. If any at all they, but they are not going to be intense enough for your corals that require high powered lighting to grow.

 

[Hypertek99]

Try it and let us know??? Or better yet go to the dollar store so you don't spend too much. Buy like 5 of them so you have lots. Hmmm i'm thinking about trying it myself. They don't cost much and i can just double the led's used and see if it's bright enough.

 

[currentking]

did anyone bother to see the LOL hammer after the origional thread?

 

[VanGogh121]

Try it and let us know??? Or better yet go to the dollar store so you don't spend too much. Buy like 5 of them so you have lots. Hmmm i'm thinking about trying it myself. They don't cost much and i can just double the led's used and see if it's bright enough.

Wow sarcasm at it best!....

 

[surfn]

this is not a new idea. i've seen people do it over on nano-reef. the light (lumens) just isn't strong enough to really keep a reef tank. sure you can do a fish only tank though.

 

[twon8]

those leds are designed to distribute light not just down, which is what we would want, but also to all sides. if you could find some individual reflectors for them, then you might be on to something

 

[tazzy695]

I was just thinking of trying a system like that over a sump possibly just to see how it works especialy since I know that my christmas tree around that time of year realy lights the living room up and now I see the new led christmas tree lights out so I may just try it once I get a sump setup dont want to risk the lives of some corals just yet but if it can grow macro well then I may try some softies under it later on

hmmmm

:marv

we need thinking smily with smoke coming out LOL

 

[currentking]

wow, you are serious. Good luck. I guess if is going to save money

 

[surfn]

I was just thinking of trying a system like that over a sump possibly just to see how it works especialy since I know that my christmas tree around that time of year realy lights the living room up and now I see the new led christmas tree lights out so I may just try it once I get a sump setup dont want to risk the lives of some corals just yet but if it can grow macro well then I may try some softies under it later on

hmmmm

:marv

we need thinking smily with smoke coming out LOL

i'm sure it will work, but not sure if the xmas tree lights will work b/c of the issues twon described with the reflectors.

but i've seen people on nano-reef rig up some white LED's as a light over their make-shift fuge in the back of their Oceanic Biocubes. (they tore the filter part out and turned it into a fuge).

seems like it works pretty well on a small fuge/tank.

 

[lostreefs]

i was going to try the same thing lol hope it works! you can make small reflectors out of a LUMIN um foil.

 

[tazzy695]

well I did a small scale test today with 3 of the led bulbs from one of those batery operated christmas light strings for a moon lingt and it actualy ligts up the tank nicly for a moon light

I might have to try a full scale test soon but I am shure it will taker probly 2 or 3 strands of the lights

 

[Hypertek99]

Try some white bulbs and blue bulbs for some actinic.

 

[tazzy695]

they white ones that are in it right now actualy look blue but in all honesty it is kinda dim I may try and increase it with more of the bulbs

 

[killingseed2000]

pictures would be nice

 

[Hypertek99]

Yeah pictures would be great.

 

[Hypertek99]

Oh does anyone know how many watts those christmas led lights are??? are they 1 watt each???

 

[tazzy695]

ok here are some pics didn't take one of the tank with the lights on cause you couldn't see the effect

this one I took with the flash

this was also taken with the flash but turned the white ballance down so that you could actualy see the lights

and here is a no flash pic

 

[Hypertek99]

The middle one looks dim?