Moon Light

So a few months ago there was talk about moon lights.  I didn't really go into my setup because I wanted to see what everyone else out there was doing.  Anyway, it seems appropriate now to share how I made my moonlights.  For the past couple of years I have had what I think is the easiest moonlight to make. 

I took a strand of christmas lights (all blue) and stuck them up in my canopy.  Plugged em in and away they went.  They were too bright, so I went ahead and pulled several of them out.  They are perfect if you ask me, and I'll try to post pictures later.  Waterproof, with a plug, $3, long cord, long lasting, not hot, adjustable light..... they work great for me. 

Just thought I would pass this on after seeing lights in the store today.

Adam

I use LED's in my reef 10 LED's, the resistors and a power converter cost less than 30 dollars.

The thing I found is that if you use somthing other than a light that is in the same wavelenght as natural moonlight the fish seem "restless" at night. I tryed several setups before I got the LED"s and the fish were always "up" in the middle of the night, now I have the led's they go hide in the rocks when the dawn/dusk lights turn off. From the research I did natural moonlight is between 468 and 475 nm, the LED's I run are 472 nm.  Just my thoughts on the subject..........

jfinch wrote: I'm curious.  Does anyone here ascribe better health (or appearance) of tank inhabitants due to moon lights?  I've got moon lights too (LEDs), but I've only used them for a few hours just after the main lights go off, just for my own enjoyment and nocturnal observation.  Just wondering if there's any reason I should be running them all night?

I don't really think there is any health benefit but there are a couple items in favor of moon lights.  One, many wrasse or blennies will jump out of the tank at night, and it appears that the moonlight helps them to know where not to jump.  Also, Gary has had great success with Morish Idols and claims it is partly because the light keeps his fish awake and he swims around at night eating a lot of algae and pods.  Other than that, it is for human asthetics.

Adam

I have also read that it promotes spawning.

Carl and leviwin are correct that it definitely is instrumental for corals, and for coral spawning.  But to heck with corals, all we care about are fish right?  Just kidding ya'.  I do know that it is important in the natural setting, I'm just not sure it does much for our tanks. 

However Jon does bring up a good point, inverts to respond well to that low light, and yes Mr. Pinchy is given an advantage.

Adam

Edited by Adam Blundell

Hi Everyone!

I have posted this before but here it is again if you are interested. I put a moonlight setup into my power compact light for my 7.5 mini-bowfront NANO tank as is suggested below and it works great! One thing that is not mentioned is that with the use of the micropot you will have some (although limited) ability to increase or decrease the intensity of the light output to suit you needs. On an old setup of my 75 gal reef tank I also used a moonlight setup that was controlled so that the light output would change according to the phases of the moon. My coral did seem to do better with that setup than what it did without it. By that I mean in growth and spawning. Oh also my snail spawnings would also concide with the changes in the phase with a full-moon etc. If nothing else it looks cool and works GREAT as a night light!!!    


NANO Tank Moonlight DIY Project


OK for all the ARC Nano SIG participants please see my Workshop thread. For everyone else here goes.

I'm sure all parts can be gotten elsewhere for cheaper but I bought everything at Radio Shack for the convience.

$11.99 #273-1758 6V DC 300 ma power supply --- Get size "N" plug and set for tip "+"
$02.49 #2741583 Power Jack for size "N" plug --- Wire it for tip "+"
$01.19 #2710280 1k ohm MicroPot
$00.99 #2711109 Pk of 5 --- 150 ohm 1/2w resistor --- used 150 ohm cause power supply was actually reading 6.8v
$03.99 #2760316 5mm Blue LED 2600mcd --- need two for Nano's under 18" in length --- use 4 for Nano's over 18" in length
$01.99 #2781668 Pk of 10 small wire clips
$02.29 #2781627 PK of assorted heat shrink

$28.92 + tax for a 2 LED setup

You will also need a little bit of red and black wire. I used 22 gauge stranded wire. A soldering iron and some thin rosin core solder.

For a Nano 18" or less:

drill hole for power Jack in back of canopy/hood.
Wire clips have sticky tape and are used to hold the wires and LED's
LED's should be mounted horizontally --- one at each end of the canopy/hood centered front to back pointing into the middle of the tank. If you mount them vertically you get a very spot lighting effect. Horizontally and you get a nice diffused light.
Basically follow the wiring diagram.
I soldered my MicroPot right to the Power Jack --- wiper continues on "+" side of diagram --- use either of the other posts and wire that to the tip side of power Jack
The long LED lead is the positive (+) lead
Most LED's are only rated for 3 seconds of solder time so be carefull not to burn up your LED.
These LED's are rated at 20ma so you could in theory wire 12 of them up to the 300ma power supply. Just use one resistor for each LED and wire in parallel.

If you choose to use another power supply you need to recalculate your resistor. Make sure the power supply is rated for more Volts than the LED and use Ohm's Law to figure out the new resistor value. If somebody needs help with that let me know and I can furnish the exact formula for figuring out the needed resistor.

Attached is a simple two LED wiring diagram. Sorry I drew it but that was faster then makeing a computer diagram.

Enjoy --- Charles
ckreef has attached this image:








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Last edited by ckreef on 10-20-2003 at 11:07 AM
The one item I forgot to mention was that the long lead of the LED is the positive (+) lead.

I'll edit my above post to add that fact.

Also this looks so cool I had to change my tank viewing time schedule. Before, the lights went out at 11:00 pm (basically my bedtime) I have now moved that back by 2 hours so I get 2 hours of tank view by moonlight.