LED Aquarium Light with Moonlight

I have a 55 gallon aquarium filled with native fish I purchased at a fish store. I got the tank from a friend for free and didn't realize how expensive it could get to have fish. I started out with just a couple of cheap florescent lights I got for 5 bucks each mounted on a  piece of plastic I bought, and cut it to fit in the lip of the tank. After a while It started to look boring and I wanted to buy a nice light. I didn't realize lights would be so expensive so I decided to make an LED aquarium light of my own. This instructable will show you how to make an LED aquarium light with a moonlight option for a reasonable price and it looks pretty cool too. I know there are other LED aquarium lights on here but some are very confusing and some just are not very bright.

Step 1 Materials

Here is a list of materials you will need:

Soldering Iron
Solder
Resistors
LED lights 
Acrylic 
LED holders
Drill
Aluminum trim
Black plastic sheet
DC power supply 

Comments

[carl87gt]

Great Instructable! I found and LED light panel at the LFS this weekend for $459. I have no intention of paying $459 for a light panel. Planning to make one and your plans look great. Love the link you gave - it give nice schematics for making your array.

Quick question - do you have any problems with heat? I am assuming these lower voltage LEDs don't generate much heat.

[tylerrick14]

Hello,
I was the one that did this Instructable but now that I can't figure out how to log in with facebook anymore I had to make a new account. Sorry my reply is so late.

The lights put off a little heat but very very little compared to a high powered LED. No heat sink or fans are required for these small LED's.

I actually made a different light that I haven't put on here yet that I think you would like a lot better. My new light uses 2 10W and 4 blue 1W high power LED's that I got off of ebay. This light puts off a lot more light than the light in the instructable and it was cheaper. Also the new light does wonders for my live plants that I added, they have nearly tripled in size since I added the new lights.

Would you like me to make an instructable on the new light fixture that I made?

[carl87gt]

Absolutely, I would love to see an instructable on the new light setup! I have a regular florescent hood on my 75 gallon. I modified the hood and added two blue cold-cathode tubes for moon lights. The lights and moon lights are on separate plugin timers.

I haven't gotten around to starting an LED light project because the 120 gallon tank I bought used had a small leak. So I fixed it. Now the small leak (literally drops) is now a super-small leak. This time it is only a very thin film of water on the bottom of the tank, no drops . . . but I still need to fix it right. A real pain to empty and rotate a 120 gallon tank so you can work on it.

But enough of tank problems! Please, make a new instructable for the new light - would love to see how it was made and how it turned out.