Moon lighting?

R

Reefer Ron

AC Members
Nov 7, 2004
70
0
0
Dothan, AL.
I have 6' of blue rope light mounted in my canopy 11" above the water level and it goes on just before the lighting goes off and goes off just after the lighting goes on. Is this too much light at night? You can see in the tank at night if all the lights in the house are off! Any comments?
 
My light fixture has the moon lights built in and they come on around 9 at night and go off around 4 am, I've been running it that way for the last year and a half and haven't noticed any problems. One thing I do like about it is being that I normally work nights on my "days" off when I am up and everybody is asleep you can see some really cool critters you normally wouldn't see with any other lights on. Ex: I have peanut worms and they only come out when the moon lights are on ;)
 
Yea, sometimes I plan on sitting and staring at the tank for 30 minutes or so, nest thing you know 2 hours have gone by. Are your moon lights single led's or rope lighting?
 
The LED's are white with blue rope. The rope is 6' long and in the front all the way at the top of my canopy 11' off the water surface. I don't believe that it is as bright as your light. I just wanted to be able to see what was going on at night. Are you ruing the LED's from the low voltage transformer?
 
Thats cool was this very hard to do and did it cost much?
box1.jpg

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finished.jpg
 
eleven feet off the water?!?!?! (just messing with you ron lol) do you have any pictures of your tank with only the ropelights on at night?
 
It wasn't too expensive nor was it very hard. Depending on how many lights you want to setup will determine how to wire it. I went with 4 since the voltage drop for the lights were 3.3vdc. 4 lights will drop the 12vdc to 3vdc across each of them when wired in series. Then I added a 150ohm resistor on the positive lead before the first led to add as some protection. If you would like some directions I can make some up.

(Qty) [Description] _(Price)_
4 [3mm LED Blue lights from lsdiodes.com] _($2.00)_
1 [3"x2"x1" project box from Radio Shack] _($2.70)_
1 [Printed circuit board from Radio Shack] _($1.79)_
1 [150ohm resistor from Radio Shack] _(dunno had is laying around)_
1 [powersupply from my MS Joystick] _(I didn't need this AC plug so i cut the connector off)_
Total was less than $10
Knowing electronics and how to wire LED's priceless...sorry had to add that part...lol
 
BTW...thanks n8dogg for reposting those pics. I don't have photoshop at work so I couldn't resize them so i just posted links. That gooey stuff is Die-electric grease. I put that on there to prevent the wires & solder from corroding.
 
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