Which LED to use?

[nunofs]

Wow, and I thought my triple-LED domes were bright

Nuno

 

[heavydc2]

Armando, that looks a bit bright for moonlight, I could be mistaken.

I made a moonlight for my tank a year ago or so, in one of the old version of currents I had an article explaining in laymans term s what exactly to do with links to suppliers and everything. Here is the link to the doc that I wrote:
http://www.chandev.com/reef/Led-Moonlighting-Project.pdf

Hope that helps.
Dave

 

[Armando]

Dave that's a great project you got there.

I tested the moonlights, they look great! I don't think they are too bright, and I am planning to use it in stages with a controller. I can also turn the power adapter down from 12V to 9V or even 6V if needed, but it should be fine at 12V.

 

[heavydc2]

Thanks Armando, it was a pretty fun project and pretty cheap. I still have 5 of the leds that I have not used yet. I htink one of the important things is not to have much of a spread from teh leds, it should not ligth up the whole tank. The fish will see the blue light, so if it bright then they will not have the right circadian rhythm (night and day) and that inturn will make the fish uncomfortable. My Led's are on 3 volts of power. You should not be able to see the fish (unless they are in the spread of light). If you want to see the fish at nigth get yourself some red leds, apparently fish can not see red. If you look at the strip I made there is about 30 leds, those are red, and that is a cool way to see the fish!
Here is all the lights on: