Blue Lighting

FishForums.net Pet of the Month
🐶 POTM Poll is Open! 🦎 Click here to Vote! 🐰

paulbr1

Fish Crazy
Joined
Jan 27, 2009
Messages
260
Reaction score
0
Location
South Yorkshire
Hi, I am thinking of introducing maybe a blue light system to the 260L, I have a few options of

LED - We have all seen this and looks fairly good
Fibre Optic - would allow me to place light in a specific part of the tank and with a varience of colours
Cold Cathode - similar effect to LED but better Q an longer life.

What does everybody think?

Paul.
 
What is the benefit of blue lighting? I've always wondered.

It helps to replicate moonlight, and with certain fishwhich don't like bright lighting it enables you to view them. One of my plecs only comes out to the front of the tank when the blue light is on.
 
Hi, I am thinking of introducing maybe a blue light system to the 260L, I have a few options of

LED - We have all seen this and looks fairly good
Fibre Optic - would allow me to place light in a specific part of the tank and with a varience of colours
Cold Cathode - similar effect to LED but better Q an longer life.

What does everybody think?

Paul.


I have used blue 3W LED's in my main tank, theoretically they should have a longer life than cold cathode
 
high intensity 10mm led + diffuser?
I'd go with white over blue to replicate moonlight.
 
high intensity 10mm led + diffuser?
I'd go with white over blue to replicate moonlight.


White is too white which sort of defeats the object, I opted not to use a diffuser as I wanted the wider spread of the LED, Also ###### the led's tend to be more point source it is better to use more than 1, in my 30" tank I use 3 x 3W Blue LED's for the moonlight and 5 x 3 W White for the main lighting.

Blue Led

SDC10499.jpg


White

SDC10495-1.jpg
 
Since fitting Blue LED lighting in my tank I have seen a marked difference in my fishs behaviour.

The LEDs are on a separate timer to my main tube lights. The LED strips come on for around 20 mins in the morning before the tubes come on, and then have a short overlap time of 5 mins and then switch off leaving only the main lights on.

The main lights then switch off in the evening after the LED strips have been on for 10 mins and the LEDs stay on for around 1.5 hours into the evening.

I found that the fish in the morning are no longer startled by the "switching on" of the main lights. This prevents sudden aggression and also allows the bristlenose and shrimp to hide before the main fish wake up.

In the evening the blue light makes the silver tips on one of my tetra shoals look stunning, while making their female companions swoon over them! The other fish in my tank also spend more time with their partners, and I have witnessed more of my bristlenose than before.
 
I have a similar set up to Saz, makes it nice for the fish so they don't get a huge jump into bright main lights or back down to total darkness.

I keep mine on at night for 2 hours after the main lights go out as it does look really cool!
 
@degsod
Any chance of a pic that has blue and white on at the same time? The blue looks a bit intense but maybe it's different irl. If the pic is close to irl, I'd be inclined to experiment with different mixes/layers of blue and white light (maybe even other colours too).

I also find diffusers tend to remove the beam/ray of light that always seems focused in one spot, even if you have multiple leds.

For my tank, the effect I'm trying to get is when I put my ipod touch on full brightness with a white screen and hold it above the water. It looks better than any led setup I've seen, but I've found leds with diffusers look pretty close.
 
@degsod
Any chance of a pic that has blue and white on at the same time? The blue looks a bit intense but maybe it's different irl. If the pic is close to irl, I'd be inclined to experiment with different mixes/layers of blue and white light (maybe even other colours too).

I also find diffusers tend to remove the beam/ray of light that always seems focused in one spot, even if you have multiple leds.

For my tank, the effect I'm trying to get is when I put my ipod touch on full brightness with a white screen and hold it above the water. It looks better than any led setup I've seen, but I've found leds with diffusers look pretty close.


Yep I will get some pics tonight and will post them for you. I don't have the lights pointing directly down, they are mounted at the back pointing to the front of the hood and the hood acts as a reflector.
 
Do you have to buy the components and contruct your own or are there pre-build LED setups available?

I'm not overly electronically minded, and tho I've read through a couple "guides" I'm still baffled...
 
Do you have to buy the components and contruct your own or are there pre-build LED setups available?

I'm not overly electronically minded, and tho I've read through a couple "guides" I'm still baffled...


You can do either, the only problem with the bought ones is the price, somethin similar to what I have constructed would cost £120+

The are lots of threads on here try looking at what supercoley has done and here is a link to my thread on build my own:-

http://www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=290887&hl=
 

Most reactions

trending

Staff online

Back
Top