I just thought I'd share some pictures of the new moonlighting I put on my tank yesterday. It is a dual 12" blue cold cathode kit (for computer) from eBay. I paid about $8/shipped for it. For power, I had a 12v power transformer from an old pair of computer speakers. Cutting the plug off the adapter, and the molex connector of the lights, then hardwiring them gives a perfect power solution. I didn't use any switches or anything, because the timer will work to turn things on and off.
Here is a night shot. The picture makes it look brighter, as usually happens in night-time picture taking. You can get a feel for it, from the lights on the powerstrips/timers below the tank - they are behind tinted glass and hard to even see with plain sight.
If I was going to run these all night long, I would probably want them just a tad dimmer. As it is, The main lights turn off at 9:45, and the moonlights run from then until midnight - then blackout. The moon lights turn back on about 6am, and run until 8am [why? because I can], at which time there is some daylight coming into the room. The main tank lights turn back on at 10am.
With the lighting how it is - you can see everything in the tank under the blue light, though there is a good amount of light/shadow from the plants and decorations. The 2x 12" cold cathodes are about perfect on the 36" wide tank.
Now I'm debating getting a set of red/orange for dawn/dusk lighting. Then I'll go dawn (red), daylight, dusk (red), moonlight (blue).
Here is a picture of the top of the tank with the moonlights on. You can see they are in-between 2 sets of coralife dual 36" T-5 fixtures.
Here is a night shot. The picture makes it look brighter, as usually happens in night-time picture taking. You can get a feel for it, from the lights on the powerstrips/timers below the tank - they are behind tinted glass and hard to even see with plain sight.
If I was going to run these all night long, I would probably want them just a tad dimmer. As it is, The main lights turn off at 9:45, and the moonlights run from then until midnight - then blackout. The moon lights turn back on about 6am, and run until 8am [why? because I can], at which time there is some daylight coming into the room. The main tank lights turn back on at 10am.
With the lighting how it is - you can see everything in the tank under the blue light, though there is a good amount of light/shadow from the plants and decorations. The 2x 12" cold cathodes are about perfect on the 36" wide tank.
Now I'm debating getting a set of red/orange for dawn/dusk lighting. Then I'll go dawn (red), daylight, dusk (red), moonlight (blue).
Here is a picture of the top of the tank with the moonlights on. You can see they are in-between 2 sets of coralife dual 36" T-5 fixtures.
