Moonlights (someone tried tihs?)

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sweetseahorse

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jul 27, 2008
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texas
I know many of yall have tried moonlights. Ive seen the post about it. But im looking to build a tank in the basement, a long one. And I was thinking of how at night the moon moves across the sky.

Have any of yall tried to simulate this? Basically as time goes lights turn on or off to simulate light moving across the sky. I looked through the forums and i have yet to see someone who wired up the lights to do this. I've only seen on or off.

Have i just not seen this or just being way to imaginative?
 
depending on what u wanted to use as leds there are many different ways from a simple using christmas leds in sections of the hood on timers to using different dimmers on timers. would u use blue across all of it and just put a white light tracking across the top.
 
there's a controller on the market that will actual simulate full lunar cycles, it's mainly used for breeding. It's also several hundred dollars. Just get several sets of lights and run them through different timers.

Think of it like this

T: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 (The numbers are lights, T is time, and X designates on)
1: X----------------
2: XX---------------
3: -XX--------------
4: --XX-------------

So on and so forth
 
I have seen this at a LFS, it was like a track light, that slowly moved, this was also for a SW.

You could hook up a CC lamp to a track and use a small DC "STEPPING" motor to move it across the tank slowly. If you go this route it must be a "STEPPING" motor or else you wont have enough fine tuning capability to move the light slow enough.
 
Actually there would be no benefit. The motion of the moon on a single night has no effect on brightness, only direction. The water's surface acts as a diffuser so there is little to no shadowing effect below the water. Clouds moving across the night sky have an effect on the brightness but don't really play a role in a fish's life cycle.

The suggestion that cassharper mentioned makes sense and could be beneficial. Though I would do it with 13 LED's controlled individually. For the first 14 days of the cycle, you would start with zero on day one and have an LED turn on each day. For the second half of the cycle, you would have one turn off each day until the new moon phase is reached.
 
Interesting Idea Chompers... I don't think I'll ever try that but it's interesting none the less... could be useful in the catfish area.

I would beg to differ on the shadowing thing however as I have tried this with my moon lights (by hand) when trying to find the best place for them and they do throw out quite the shadow (Blue LED's and a Blue Compact Florescents)
 
basslover34;2392959; said:
I would beg to differ on the shadowing thing however as I have tried this with my moon lights (by hand) when trying to find the best place for them and they do throw out quite the shadow (Blue LED's and a Blue Compact Florescents)
Click to expand...

In nature it is different. In a lake it is rare for the water to be totally glassy (smooth). There are still small ripples/waves on the surface that diffuse the incoming moon light. Shadowing at the bottom is mostly nullified. Actually, shadowing during the day (even high noon) is also nullified (I scuba dive). Think about the light pattern on the bottom that is typical during the day.
 
CHOMPERS;2392980; said:
In nature it is different. In a lake it is rare for the water to be totally glassy (smooth). There are still small ripples/waves on the surface that diffuse the incoming moon light. Shadowing at the bottom is mostly nullified. Actually, shadowing during the day (even high noon) is also nullified (I scuba dive). Think about the light pattern on the bottom that is typical during the day.
Click to expand...
depending on the depth of the crevice ... I can see your point...
 
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