# My $12 DIY LED Moonlights / Evening Lights



## shortsboy (Feb 6, 2011)

My 30g tank holds a prominent place in my living room, and is lit for plant growth by a 2xT5HO for 8 hours during the day. However, because work keeps me away during almost all the photoperiod, and because the lights are bright and right by our TV, I wanted a set of lights that'd let me watch my tank at night, without adding too much light to the tank or the room.

I've looked at a lot of the various options floating around on this forum and beyond regarding DIY moonlighting, and had relearned all my basic wiring to try to rig up a multi-stranded dimmable / switchable LED array. I had everything pretty well sorted out for about $40 (3x1m led strips, 12v power supply, 3xPots, soldering iron) when I found pretty much exactly what I was looking for for $12 on Ebay. 

The kit is a waterproof 1m strip containing 33 LED's (RGB 3528), a power supply, the in-line controller/driver, and a remote to work it all. I'm sure anyone who's looked around for this kind of lighting has seen about a hundred different ones of these pop up in their search. I managed to find this one for $12 with shipping from a US supplier, so it took 4 days to get here after ordering.

Here is the kit, laid out on my floor. The cat was extra.









Light amount is good. It lets me clearly see what's going on in my tank when at full blast white, and having 16 different shades to choose from gives some versatility. There are a couple different blues which look pretty good for "moon light" type colours, and it has a 5 or so step brightness controller as well. 

Here are a few shots of the tank. Camera settings were uniform for tank shots (f4.0, 1/4 exposure, ISO 200) and set up to be representative of the light I see in a low-lit room looking at it. 

Tank with full blue









Tank with full white









Tank with the Yellow setting









SATAN TANK!!!!!!









This kit won't blow you away with shimmer on the bottom (a bit, but not too much), or pretend to have any real photosynthetic potential, but it's working well for me, and lets me reclaim my reading light I had on the tank for evening viewing.


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## MARIMOBALL (Mar 18, 2007)

Nice for the money spent. Do you have the ebay link?


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## shortsboy (Feb 6, 2011)

can't post up ebay links here, but I'll pm it to you.


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## MangyMoose77 (Feb 19, 2012)

Any way you could send that link to me as well? I am in the middle of building a hood. This would be a perfect fit!


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## digitallinh (Jun 22, 2011)

me too please? I've been looking for a solution, and am unsure of the 30 dollar moonlight kit you see in pet stores...

Is that a remote?


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## shortsboy (Feb 6, 2011)

It is a remote. One of the joys of this kit is turning it on / off and changing colours without lifting my butt off the couch. 

The item number I got was 120862570443, although there look to be plenty of other people selling it. Hopefully this doesn't violate the ebay policy.


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## xev11 (Jan 19, 2010)

cant find on ebay using that number, please pm me the link as well


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## digitallinh (Jun 22, 2011)

Could you by any chance post the auction name, thanks!

I'm looking and I don't see any with the remote!


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## GitMoe (Aug 30, 2010)

This could be great. My LED moonlights on my display tank are starting to burn out after being on for a continuous year or so. Been looking for a replacement.


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## Jonny Rotten (Feb 17, 2012)

Ill take that ebay name also.Please pm


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## dasob85 (Feb 4, 2012)

Can i get the ebay name too! thanks!


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## shortsboy (Feb 6, 2011)

Sorry, had goofed on the item number. Stupid fat fingers don't do well on smartphones. I've corrected the number in the previous post, although if you search for 1m waterproof led strip rgb, or any combination therein, it should take you to similar items.


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## digitallinh (Jun 22, 2011)

That's solid, thanks; was looking up the wrong thing!

Gonna try to rig my fixture that's suspended over my main tank.


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## xev11 (Jan 19, 2010)

So this gives you everything you need to make it work, right?


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## Secretninja (Dec 30, 2011)

I found one on amazon that has all 5 m of the ribbon and the driver for about 27$ shipped. Would you think it is worth the extra for the additional light? Do you think that 5 strips of this (what the 5m works out to on a 3ft tank) would be adequate light for viewing fish in a non planted tank?

I had found these strips before, but after asking around people convinced me they didn't produce enough light. Your pics, however, look to be doing almost exactly what I want.


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## shortsboy (Feb 6, 2011)

The kit I got included everything needed to light it up and make it change colours / brightness etc. As a single strip of lights it's definitely not bright enough to replace a daytime light, but I imagine that multiplying that by 5 would make it ok, but not incredible for general use. However, if you got 5m of it, you'd have to wind it back and forth because I'm not sure if you can solder cut ends together (I mean technically I can't see why not, but haven't tried it), and that'd leave loops at either end shining horizontally into the room. I know there has been another hood built with 5 parallel lengths of this type of led strand, and the light output on this was deemed to be underwhelming, but I've not tried it myself.

Also, just so you are aware, the white light can't be tuned to anything in a 6700k kind of colour; it comes out looking more like a mix of 10000 k and actinic, and while that is great for my night time purposes, it wouldn't look as good as the main day light IMO.


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## vincenz (Jan 29, 2012)

This is great, thanks for the heads-up.

Do you know if it's possible to cut off any excess length you don't need? My tank is only 24" long, so if it's possible to snip some off at the end, it'd be perfect. 

Also do you know if it'll be any good if the LEDs are 6" above the surface? I see you put yours directly in the water. Did you stick it to the rim or someplace?


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## shortsboy (Feb 6, 2011)

Mine is actually adhered to the underside of my t5, not in the water directly, so up about 3" from the water surface, so no prob there. As for trimming, every three LEDs there is a junction point where it has been described as a spot you can trim. Again, no experience here, but them's the specs I saw somewhere.


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## shortsboy (Feb 6, 2011)

Oh yeah, forgot to say that it's a standard 30g, so with the extra height from the fixture, it's about 20" to the substrate from the strand.


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## vincenz (Jan 29, 2012)

All right, thanks. I'm really itching to get this, but my fixture is 6" above the water and I'm worried about too much light spilling out and not down.


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## digitallinh (Jun 22, 2011)

My fixture is about 6-8 inches above the water too, I'm still trying to figure out how to enclose it inside my fixture, and work the wiring so there aren't wires everywhere.


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## Method (Feb 13, 2011)

Mine was delivered and installed last night, after which I stayed up WAY too late watching the fish go about their nightly business. This was a great find shortsboy!


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## monkeyruler90 (Apr 13, 2008)

wow, thanks for the bump. definitely including this in my fixture! its way cheaper than the other moonlight kits!


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## zonamav (Feb 27, 2004)

Would this work with a timer or do you need to manually use the remote to turn on and off all the time?


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## Method (Feb 13, 2011)

Mine's on a timer. 

I generally leave the blue light on all the time at the dimmest setting. It turns on at the same time my main lights turn off. 

I only turn the LED fixture brighter if I want to view the fish.


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## zonamav (Feb 27, 2004)

Cool thanks!

Sent from my VM670 using Tapatalk


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## shortsboy (Feb 6, 2011)

Happy I could be of service. As an update, the light's been in use for about 3 months now with no problems at all to report.


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