anyone have any experience / info on using LED on tank? i want to use led for moonlight, but want to plug it into the wall as opposed to running on batteries.

* have seen the ones available, icecap, etc, but looking for a more DIY solution

cathode looks like the way to go to me.

yeah i was keen on the LED as its light ripples from the surface current. looks cool. dont really get that from tubes.

Jaycar sell a unit that plugs into the wall for about $30 powers up to 8 LEDs, they also sell water proof LEDs in different colours , I thing they are $15 each.

cool. ill check them out & post up if theyre any good.

not needing to mount them underwater, just aboue the tank pointing down.

I've had a lot of experience with both from modding computer cases back in the day. LED has a strong piercing light that seems to go deeper than CC. CC is good for background lighting but not really for an illuminating effect. I was at JayCar yesterday and saw a bendable blue LED strip (that's probably water resistant as well) with a molex (12V) power connector. My idea is to get a timed power supply to switch between the LED night lighting and the solenoid valve for a pressurized CO2 system. This requires a 12V solenoid rather than mains power, which I was able to find on eBay.

JayCar is pretty handy for electrical/electronic bits and peices.

The warehouse, Blue LED xmas lights 90 for $40 with transformer the only thing ya need to do is mount them in ya hood, and if ya use the controller that comes with it, it switches between 3 strings or fades between the strings to give a forest canopy effect or wave effect.

yeah I bought the ones thunderstorm is talking about. For mounting them Im probably just gonna chuck them in some clear piping and run it through the hood.

Cheap and easy - and the lighting effect is real cool.

Does anybody know what kind of light the LED's would put out? Like, would it be any good for plants? Or would they really just be more for decorative purposes...

I think the lighting would help plants about as much as moonlight would. No affect whatsoever. The whole purpose behind night lighting is to allow for late viewing of nocturnal fish and to give the fish some light during the night hours. In the real world fish usually have some illumination available to them 24 hours a day. In tanks in the average house they're subjected to up to 12 hours of complete darkness which results in the inability for nocturnal fish to see at night and for diurnal fish to sleep and still be aware of surroundings.

Thanks for the Warehouse heads up, guys. I'll be getting some strings and setting up night lights in the fish room now

Aqua: I like to have a pilot light on my planted tank so the fish don't get a fright when the main lights come on in the morning. I built it before the new flouro bulbs became available and they won't fit in it so I use a pair of 15 watt incandescent bulbs on dimmers. With growlux, daylight and incandescent I think it gives a good range of light frequencies. The plants are growing pretty well so something must be right. You can get an 8 watt flouro bulb which would have similar frequency to incandescent and cooler to run, but I don't think you can use a dimmer on them, so you may get algae problems with them running continuously.

Man, slap on some blue LEDs, some 15" rims. Maybe a blower....

...wait, is this still the same forum???

a mobile phone charger is sufficient to power several LED's. i was messing round with these two about a month ago for the same purpose

I've done this with a set of 5 very bright blue led's from DSE. Check out my thread in SALTWATER for a picture. I've connected them onto a variable 24V power adapter and set it up on a timer. Works really well, and easy to make.