fish+peace
Fish Fanatic
Prompted by the MRS complaining that the corner looked dark and unloved when the fish tank light was off after tea ( I limit it to 10 hours to keep algae at bay etc ) and the aesthetically pleasing look of blue lights coupled with my liking for little projects I decided to install a moonlight
Cold Cathode
After scanning the tinterweb I came across cold cathode and was sold by the even light distribution and the intensity of light and found the below at maplins think (tandy/radioshack if your outside the uk)
http
/www.maplin.co.uk/cold-cathode-2-tube-kit-34147
I bought this from the local store and the ones available to me came with one UV and one blue light. The UV didn’t do anything impressive and the one blue was plenty for my 21 gallon so I basically stuck it behind the tube on my hood and wired it to a 9v 300ma ac-dc adaptor the fed the wire through the back of the hood and velcro’d the inverter above the hood out the way of any potential water drips/splashes
The result were great an evenly distributed moonlight that at the specified voltage wasn’t too light so as to keep the fish up all nigh but neither to dull so as I couldn’t see what was going on.
All was good and I set the moonlight and Daylight (tube) as follows using a timer each
Incidentally if your in the uk the best timers are the 3 pack of digital ones in Argos as per link below for £15.
I bought a couple of analogue dial ones with the little tabs and they are very crude to set, sometimes failed to work and also lost up to a couple of mins accuracy a day
The below timers allow up to 8 on and off’s a day/ 16 combinations a week
http/www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/9822911.htm
Moonlight/Daylight settings
On Off
Moonlight Moonlight
8.00am 9.02am
Daylight Daylight
9.00am 5.00pm
Moonlight Moonlight
4.58pm 12.00am
As you can see the staggered setting between the 2 timers allow the moonlight to come on roughly 1 hour before the daylight in the morning which doesn’t startle the fish as much, the moonlight then turns off 2 mins after, then when the daylight goes off at 5pm the moonlight had turned on 2mins before to keep the tank illuminated.
Anyway all was good until the moonlight failed to turn on I checked the connections etc and it turned out the inverter had gone they are available separately for £4.99 in maplin so I replaced it and all was good for another few days until again no moonlight the issue again was the inverter which upon opening smelt slightly of burning and had gone caput now the first one had been subject to a couple of voltage tests with various adaptor and voltages though none were outside its recommended input.
A quick google revealed many issues with the cheap and cheerful inverters some of which shocked me as I read of them exploding and melting inside pc’s as per pic below from the linked pc modding site
http/www.casemodgod.com/ccfl_inverter_rant.htm
I also learned that the inverter stepped up the 9v to something like 640v so coupled with the high failure rates and high voltage I decided this wasn’t something I wanted a. hanging over 21 gallons of water
b. leaving unsupervised day in day out.
The move to LED
LED is much simpler - straight forward bright low powered bulbs which run straight off the dc voltage emitting the inverter
Maplin can be expensive and there led’s were no exception, time is a premium for me so I didn’t want to spend time soldering individual bulbs etc so I came across the following
http/www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/Other+products/XEBEC+50cm+Waterproof+LED+Strip+-+Blue+?productId=47370
readily waterproof with adhesive backing it was fitted in 5 mins and just involved cutting the 2 wires which connect to a pc molex adaptor and twisting them to the appropriate wires on the ac adaptor (still 9v 300ma) this loom then plugs onto the led strip via a male pin connector allowing it to be easily removed and the best part for those with bigger tanks is the led strips can be daisy chained to allow longer lengths.
The verdict
I would say both give a great evenly distributed light and where as cold cathode maybe had the intensity edge - the safety and reliability of LED including the ability to daisy chain far outweigh the Cold cathode lights meaning its LED all the way for me
As a side note although this is aesthetically pleasing for the tank owner don’t forget that this has to work for your wet pets too and be realistic on how bright you have it as if it is too bright they will soon be suffering from insomnia
This is a subject that has probably been flogged to death I just wanted to show my finding and make people aware of the potential hazards of CCL (cold cathode lighting)
If anyone is interested I could update with some pictures the one below show the current led but not having a background allows a lot of light escape through the rear of the tank
Cold Cathode
After scanning the tinterweb I came across cold cathode and was sold by the even light distribution and the intensity of light and found the below at maplins think (tandy/radioshack if your outside the uk)
http
/www.maplin.co.uk/cold-cathode-2-tube-kit-34147I bought this from the local store and the ones available to me came with one UV and one blue light. The UV didn’t do anything impressive and the one blue was plenty for my 21 gallon so I basically stuck it behind the tube on my hood and wired it to a 9v 300ma ac-dc adaptor the fed the wire through the back of the hood and velcro’d the inverter above the hood out the way of any potential water drips/splashes
The result were great an evenly distributed moonlight that at the specified voltage wasn’t too light so as to keep the fish up all nigh but neither to dull so as I couldn’t see what was going on.
All was good and I set the moonlight and Daylight (tube) as follows using a timer each
Incidentally if your in the uk the best timers are the 3 pack of digital ones in Argos as per link below for £15.
I bought a couple of analogue dial ones with the little tabs and they are very crude to set, sometimes failed to work and also lost up to a couple of mins accuracy a day
The below timers allow up to 8 on and off’s a day/ 16 combinations a week
http
/www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/9822911.htmMoonlight/Daylight settings
On Off
Moonlight Moonlight
8.00am 9.02am
Daylight Daylight
9.00am 5.00pm
Moonlight Moonlight
4.58pm 12.00am
As you can see the staggered setting between the 2 timers allow the moonlight to come on roughly 1 hour before the daylight in the morning which doesn’t startle the fish as much, the moonlight then turns off 2 mins after, then when the daylight goes off at 5pm the moonlight had turned on 2mins before to keep the tank illuminated.
Anyway all was good until the moonlight failed to turn on I checked the connections etc and it turned out the inverter had gone they are available separately for £4.99 in maplin so I replaced it and all was good for another few days until again no moonlight the issue again was the inverter which upon opening smelt slightly of burning and had gone caput now the first one had been subject to a couple of voltage tests with various adaptor and voltages though none were outside its recommended input.
A quick google revealed many issues with the cheap and cheerful inverters some of which shocked me as I read of them exploding and melting inside pc’s as per pic below from the linked pc modding site
http
/www.casemodgod.com/ccfl_inverter_rant.htmI also learned that the inverter stepped up the 9v to something like 640v so coupled with the high failure rates and high voltage I decided this wasn’t something I wanted a. hanging over 21 gallons of water
b. leaving unsupervised day in day out.
The move to LED
LED is much simpler - straight forward bright low powered bulbs which run straight off the dc voltage emitting the inverter
Maplin can be expensive and there led’s were no exception, time is a premium for me so I didn’t want to spend time soldering individual bulbs etc so I came across the following
http
/www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/Other+products/XEBEC+50cm+Waterproof+LED+Strip+-+Blue+?productId=47370readily waterproof with adhesive backing it was fitted in 5 mins and just involved cutting the 2 wires which connect to a pc molex adaptor and twisting them to the appropriate wires on the ac adaptor (still 9v 300ma) this loom then plugs onto the led strip via a male pin connector allowing it to be easily removed and the best part for those with bigger tanks is the led strips can be daisy chained to allow longer lengths.
The verdict
I would say both give a great evenly distributed light and where as cold cathode maybe had the intensity edge - the safety and reliability of LED including the ability to daisy chain far outweigh the Cold cathode lights meaning its LED all the way for me
As a side note although this is aesthetically pleasing for the tank owner don’t forget that this has to work for your wet pets too and be realistic on how bright you have it as if it is too bright they will soon be suffering from insomnia
This is a subject that has probably been flogged to death I just wanted to show my finding and make people aware of the potential hazards of CCL (cold cathode lighting)
If anyone is interested I could update with some pictures the one below show the current led but not having a background allows a lot of light escape through the rear of the tank
