Strong LED lights for 600 gallon aquarium???

[Fish Eat Fish]

I personally will never buy an aquarium light again. You can make or repurpose lights that are so much better for a fraction of the price. I'm working on a 4' 144 led strip light where I can control everything and simulate weather effects using Arduino.

 

[Ilawis]

It's sunny in my tank all the time until my automatic timer on the plug says it's night time (best $5 ever)

That was when i had a tank anyway......

 

[Fish Tank Travis]

I personally will never buy an aquarium light again. You can make or repurpose lights that are so much better for a fraction of the price. I'm working on a 4' 144 led strip light where I can control everything and simulate weather effects using Arduino.

Do you mind elaborating on this setup. I'm always interested in learning new ways to build lights, especially if they're cheap.

 

[Fish Eat Fish]

Do you mind elaborating on this setup. I'm always interested in learning new ways to build lights, especially if they're cheap.

I have all the parts just need to find the time. It will use a 3 meter (not quite 4ft but close enough) WS2812B individually addressable strip of leds. The tricky part is its 144 of them. At 60mA and 5V each that's nearly 9A at 5V. Not a common power supply but they aren't too hard to find online. I went 15A for the power supply so I am never running it at full duty. They use an interesting 3 wire setup. 1 for power +, 1 for power -, and 1 for data. Each led has a an integrated control circuit (data line) that allows a controller to send an addressed message to it. To put it simply you can talk to each LED and tell it the exact color and brightness that you want. Wire this to an Arduino, write some code for different effects or even day and night cycles and you have a light with more features and possibilities than anything available. Want a golden sunrise and reddish sunset? Easy. Want a cloud rolling over effect? Done. My LED strip even came waterproof from the factory so all I have to do is be careful with the wiring and you could run the thing inside the tank if you wanted.

I was thinking about making this into a kit and with my own coded effects and all the wiring taken care of. I thought people might be interested especially since it would still be cheaper than the middle and high end stuff.

 

[Fish Eat Fish]

Here is a way easier and cheaper option that's incredibly flexible and easily expandable. Just buy a waterproof 5050 RGB LED set of appropriate length on eBay or Amazon. Make sure it has a power supply. Then mount it in a piece of aluminum channel...that's it.

I made this for my girlfriends axolotl tank but I have it on my new setup. It was actually so simple I never thought to share it haha. Cost like $35. You could easily just use a wider aluminum channel and run more strips or use a strip with higher led density.

 

[Fish Eat Fish]

Pictures didn't work and it won't let me edit

$35 for a remote control infinitely adjustable 4 foot light fixture with an aluminum body...that's why I won't buy lights in a store.