Decided I should stop hijacking other threads and post my photos in here instead.

I'm working on getting a nano marine tank up and running using a Fluval Edge I got cheap.

Step 1, sort out the lighting.

Note: All of these photos are taken at low settings so you can see the shape of the beams etc. The actual result looks a lot brighter. ISO 100, shutter 1/15, aperture 5, AWB off, dark room.

What I've managed to find online says you should have a blend of daylight around 6500K, blue light around 450nm (royal blue) and some violet light around 420nm. After a week or so hunting online for appropriate LED's, I found everything I need to achieve those 3 requirements.

Starting point (original edge with 2 x 10W halogen lights):

Then I got 2 x 0.7W wide angle MR11 globes that fit into the existing halogen fittings. These are rated at 6400 - 6600K. Total power 1.4W @ 12V:

Tonight I've just finished wiring up my 2 x 3W 420nm violet LEDs along with 1 x 3W 450nm royal blue LED.

Blue and violet only (the violet doesn't come out very well on my camera, but it looks good in real life):

All 3 blended together:

Next step, work on a fitting for the top to prevent evaporation.

oh were did you find the LEDs? I gave up looking for them after a while for my Edge

Yeah, Original edge lights aren't too great. Been looking at these on Youtube quite a bit. Definiately worth it once it's established. Wish you luck man.

Epic, still one colour to go in yeah, violet?

Duh, just re-read it :nilly:

oh were did you find the LEDs? I gave up looking for them after a while for my Edge

From many different sources. I bought the last stock of the violet and blue LEDs from the company I got them from. http://www.ledsales.com.au also sell the 420nm violet and 450nm blue LEDs although they're out of stock on the violet at the moment. I ended up paying a bit more for my white lighting and got it from an NZ company. http://www.briteledtech.co.nz they list MR11 warm white lights but if you email them they're able to do cool white as well. I also got some white globes from http://www.ledwholesalers.com which look the same but were heaps cheaper. They have a wider colour range. I'll probably build a cover to extend out to the side of the edge hood to house those to give it a bit extra light.

I plan to run some controllers for each of the different colours and then computer control the blending of the light giving it the effect of the sun passing over the sky during the day then the same for moonlight at night.

that will look awesome

How's your setup coming along mate, any progress?

how's the tank going man? been waiting for an update :spop:

Sorry, have been real busy lately, also got sidetracked because I now have a 450L marine tank.

I got this one going. Have a small blue damsal and a fire shrimp in there, as well as a few soft corals.

Due to the size of it and how quickly water would evapourate, I made a seal from polycarb that sits inside the top of the edge tank and also over top of the in built filter. Since doing that, I've lost pretty much 0 water. I'll take a photo of that tomorrow.

Next step, I'll probably take it apart again and look to replace the filter with some kind of pump that cycles water from my 450L tank into this one.

looking good so far !

Marine tanks need open surface areas for gas exchange, evaporation also reduces heat in summer, and the lid will soon get salt baked into it, significantly reducing light, the poly will already be doing this now.

Suggest you remove it and buy a cheap auto top up unit to keep the tank topped up. IMO.

Marine tanks need open surface areas for gas exchange, evaporation also reduces heat in summer, and the lid will soon get salt baked into it, significantly reducing light, the poly will already be doing this now.

no air gap

It gets plenty of airation etc in the filter unit on the back, this just protects the lights and stops the heat from the lights from evapourating the water quickly. It's been running for months now and I've had no issues at all. No salt build up.

ok, unusual but if it's working for ya.........................

pic updateing time :spop:

Is there a reason for violet lights? do corals require this spectrum of light to grow/flower(correct term with corals?)? or just for visual effects?

Im a fairly experienced gardener and use LED's with a white/blue/red 5/3/1 ratio and white/red/orange 3/1/1 ratio. but not sure of the use of violet.

have had white/blue red turned off running on FW planted tank and they seem to like it better than T5's, have had LED's on for a couple weeks(just a trial for now) and my ambulia has grown about 3 times as much as when i had T5's on for a month. will be trying red not too far away to see how that goes.

I'll try to grab some pics in the weekend.

As for the violet light, true actinic bulbs used for reef tanks peak at a wavelength of 420nm. However, I believe they also offer high levels of blue all the way through to around 460nm. I've tried to replicate this using LED's by using a 420nm and 450nm wavelength light source.

I'm not the best person to answer why actinic light is good, but I believe it has to do with the way chlorophyll absorbs light during photosynthesis in a reef. This has something to do with the ability of the wavelengths of this light being able to to penetrate deeper into water than other wavelengths.

i might have to do a bit of homework to make some marine lights if i go that way.

by the looks of it corals will need the low light spectrum to achieve good growth.

The lower the light spectrum the deeper the light can penetrate, hence the reason for blues, so im guessing in nature with corals being at the floor of the ocean they have evolved to require a lower light spectrum to plants out of water.

so the deeper your corals are found in nature the blue the light... correct me if im wrong, just some conclusions i came to re-reading on light wavelength and water refraction.

might have to start in marine to test some lights lol

thats right i think, closer to the surface the whiter is a whiter colour

i might have to do a bit of homework to make some marine lights if i go that way.

by the looks of it corals will need the low light spectrum to achieve good growth.

The lower the light spectrum the deeper the light can penetrate, hence the reason for blues, so im guessing in nature with corals being at the floor of the ocean they have evolved to require a lower light spectrum to plants out of water.

so the deeper your corals are found in nature the blue the light... correct me if im wrong, just some conclusions i came to re-reading on light wavelength and water refraction.

might have to start in marine to test some lights lol

That's how I understand it to be from the limited research I did before committing to finding appropriate LED's.

I have moved to leds as well finding them great :thup:

i was looking at LEDs but the best 1s in the world come from england and stuff the 1s in nz arent that great so we r sticking with metal halide