Lighting moonlight LED

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo

Dairy

Gambusia
MFK Member
Nov 11, 2010
108
0
16
Central NJ
Question: Will the LED strip used for cars be suitable for moonlight setup for the tank?

I'm trying to save bucks so i'm thinking of doing some DIY Lighting. I dont know much about this and I'm concerned if my fish will be affected by the lighting. I dont have any live plants as of now. I have 1 senegal bichir in my tank. The LED is said suitable for DC 12V power supply.

Thanks!
 
You would need to convert the DC to AC and make it 110 volts...doubt the light will last more than a couple seconds before you toast it...some cheap alternatives are the blue christmas lights or picking up some blue leds, resistors, and an old cell phone charger...I did the second option and mounted them in my existing light housing, costed me a total of 8 bucks and took me about an hour to install
 
I bought a small blue strip light off of Ebay that came with just two wires attached, no power source included. It was six bucks. I cut the top off of a 12v dc charger and wired it to a rocker switch and mounted it on a small homemade box that held the light inside. Worked like a charm. Just make sure you use direct current and you should be good. Wiring a rocker switch is easy, just tie, wire nut and black tape the neutrals together, then take both hots and attach them to the two screws inside the rocker switch. Close it up, plug it in and flick it on and off. If it works you did it right, if it doesn't try again. I'm pretty sure a phone charger is DC so just clip the attachment that plugs directly in your phone off, then strip off about a quarter inch of the wires. That should be about a three foot stretch from your plug to where your rocker switch is. The light will connect to the other side and should have about 2 ft. of wire connected to it. Rocker switches are cheap, old phone chargers are useless and the light mechanism is about six bucks, so with ten bucks and about ten minutes of work you can set your night light up. I do it all the time, necessity is the mother of invention. Make sure you church it up real nice though, nothing is sadder than when something functions but still looks like crap. Show some follow though and keep it tight, there are two steps, creating it then streamlining it. Craftmanship is everything, details details details. Good luck.
 
Oh yeah, if you having trouble figuring out which wire on your DC converter is hot look for a white line or series of broken white lines. That's usually the hot. If it's not flip it. Like I said it's easy to tell if you got it right, light goes on then good, no light bad. It's cake too, don't be intimidated.
 
This was simple and cost me 8 bucks and took about an hour to install...I already had the old phone charger...These run off 3.5V AC and the phone charger knocks the 110VAC down to 3.5VAC, no convertor needed and you can add as many or little as you want
leds.jpgleds2.jpgleds3.jpg

leds.jpg

leds2.jpg

leds3.jpg
 
Thanks...it was easy and I love easy lol
 
I picked up a 6' length of blue LED christmas lights that I stuffed in my hood last January, they were cheap($5), look great, and only took a few minutes to install since I just had to plug them into my powerstrip.
 
ya ...if you hook up a LED rated for 12v dc it will fry in just one second!! and smoke..ive seen it lol..definetley wanna add in some resistors
 
Thanks guys! LOL I had no idea. I guess I have to do more research. I have 0 experience with these (except from the mandatory project from school lol) so I have to a lot of research and I guess practice. I'll look into your suggestions. I'm getting pumped up with the challenge! Christmas lights seem easy lol. But I think I might like the looks of LED lights. I'm not sure what's the differences in terms of the looks. Although, a picture at night with your blue lights would be appreciated! :)
 
MonsterFishKeepers.com