How to make LED aquarium lighting?

What difficulties can arise?

In fact, there are not many factors that can affect the lighting in the aquarium. Among the most important it is necessary to allocate:

1. In due course any lamps lose light output, therefore it is necessary to replace them in time. For example, light-emitting diodes eventually degrade, so in 3-5 years they are already desirable to replace. At the same time, the luminous flux of fluorescent lamps decreases after six months of operation.
2. When passing through water, light is scattered and absorbed by the plants on the way to the bottom. For example, at the bottom of a 50-centimeter aquarium, the intensity of the light flux will be reduced by more than 4 times. The same situation with a protective glass, which can be installed on the fixtures - when passing through the glass, the lighting loses its intensity.
3. Incandescent and metal halide light sources produce a large amount of heat, which in turn negatively affects the flora and fauna. If you decide to select a powerful light bulb to illuminate a deep aquarium, be sure to consider a heat dissipation system.
4. You can not recommend with 100% accuracy the power and color spectrum, which is suitable for your individual conditions. For each species of plants and fish you need your specific characteristics of light sources, so below we will provide only general tips on how to correctly make lighting in the aquarium with your own hands.

As you can see, there are difficulties in organizing the backlight, but all of them can be avoided if we correctly approach the selection of lamps according to the characteristics. We'll talk about this later.

Technology for selecting lamps

To make aquarium lighting at home, you must first properly select the light bulbs for power, type and light flux. Let's consider features of each of characteristics of household lamps.

By type

The first thing you need to choose is the type of light source. To date, fluorescent, metal halide and LED lamps are used to illuminate the aquarium. Light bulbs and halogen products are already a thing of the past.heat, have a short service life and also a low efficiency. Consider the most popular of the devices:

1. Luminescent( energy-saving).Economy lamps consume 5 times less electricity than simple light sources. They can be linear( LL), whose representatives are products T4, T5 and T8 or compact( CLE).The first option is used more often, especially the T5 model, which, despite its high price, has high light output and a long service life( over 5 years).As for LCC, it is recommended to use them to illuminate small aquariums up to 70 liters. If you buy a powerful LCC, you will need to take care of a quality cooling system, becauseproducts emit a lot of heat.
2. Metal halide. They have a good luminous flux and high power, so they are most often used to illuminate large deep aquariums in the house. Of shortcomings - a short service life.
3. LEDs. Modern light sources are the future. To date, a variety of diodes knows no limits. There are also LED tapes, and spotlights, and LED fixtures and even diode lamps. They have the lowest power consumption, high luminous efficiency and long service life. The disadvantage is the high price, although the purchase "repels" its price quickly due to significant energy savings.

LED aquarium lighting is the most modern and used most recently. A few more advantages of such products are that they do not get too hot, they can work from a safe voltage( 12 volts) and also have high strength properties( the case is difficult to break).

Of all the options listed above, we recommend that you choose either LEDs or fluorescent lights that have a lot of positive feedback from the owners of home aquariums.

There are many useful things you can learn in this video:

By power of

To date, there is a wide range of household lamps, power ranging from 5 watts to hundreds. To properly choose this technical specification, rely on the following recommendations( in relation to the most popular - energy-saving lamps):

• for moderate illumination of the aquarium it is enough to calculate 0.2 - 0.3 Watt per liter;
• to make a bright backlight, the power should be 0.5 - 0.8 W / l;
• if the capacity of many plants and fish, it is better to calculate the power from 0.8 to 1 W / liter.

This calculation is generally accepted, but it is not worth while to rely on it. It is better to take into account a more important characteristic - light output.

For light output

The best way to calculate the lighting of the aquarium by light output. For a standard tank height( 50 cm), a luminous flux of about 30-50 lumens per liter should be calculated. Total, for the most popular volumes of aquariums, choose the following total light output depending on the dimensions:

• 25 l: 750 to 1500 Lm;
• 60 liters: from 1800 to 3000 lm;
• 70 liters: from 2100 to 3500 Lm;
• 100 liters: from 3000 to 5000 lm;
• 120 liters: from 3600 to 6000 Lm;
• 140 liters: from 4200 to 7000 Lm;
• 200 liters: from 6000 to 10,000 lm;
• 300 liters: from 9000 to 15000 lm.

As you understand, for lighting a large deep aquarium you will need to pick up powerful lamps with high light output. In this regard, the housekeeper, of course, in a winning position, because.consume less electricity when emitting the same light flux as the alternatives, as can be seen from the table:

You also need to correctly select the light bulbs according to the color spectrum. There is a theory that for flora it is best to buy light sources that emit yellow and red color, so that plants grow well. However, this point is rather controversial and most experts recommend installing several different lamps at the same time. On the design side, the color temperature can affect the illumination as follows:

In addition, we recommend that you also watch a video detailing the importance of proper aquarium lighting:

Selecting the location of the

fixtures When you determine the required power and type of lamps, you will need to create the correct scheme, which will mark the installation locations of all fixtures. Here is your business, how to place them inside the tank: in front under the lid, or make the side lighting of the aquarium, fixing the lamps on the sides of the lid. Colored lamps are also recommended to be installed in front to organize light overflow on plants and fish.

Above the open aquarium, you can hang a fluorescent light from above, which will brightly illuminate all the flora and fauna under the water. If an aquarium without plants, you can connect an RGB LED strip that will make the original color highlight, as shown in the photo. A single-colored diode tape is also often used, but its brightness may not be sufficient for high-quality lighting of large capacity. Such lighting fixtures are best mounted around the perimeter for additional decorative illumination of the water.

Correct connection of homemade lighting

Well, we went on to the most important question of the article - how to make the aquarium lighting with your own hands. Consider a simple instruction for connecting a homemade LED tape that will create a backlight under the water.

First of all we prepare all the necessary materials. In our case, this is an LED ribbon of 12 diodes, a plastic bulb of suitable length, a 220/12 volt power supply, a soldering iron, a silicone and an awl. Since in our power supply connector for connecting the "dad", you need to additionally buy a 12-volt power connector "mother" for connecting the tape itself. In addition, a piece of foam rubber and a two-wire wire for connecting the tape are useful. After gathering all the materials, we get down to business.

Use an awl to punch a small hole in the lid in order to drag the wire, as shown in the photo.

The wire should be soldered to the tape, which on the other hand will be attached to the "mum" by the clamping screws. When you do this, you need to stick the pieces of foam rubber from the back of the LED tape in three places so that the material does not hang in the bulb. In our case noise insulation was used with the machine, becausefoam rubber at hand was not found.

Next, the homemade should be placed in a flask and thoroughly sealed by all the joints to prevent water from getting inside. The advantage of this bulb is that if you need to repair the lighting in the aquarium( in particular the tape itself), you can easily get it out of the water, unwind and replace.

Eventually, the tape is connected to the network and checked for operability. As you can see, making LED lighting in an aquarium with your own hands is not so difficult, the main thing to want!

It is recommended to connect the luminaire not directly to the outlet, but through a socket-timer. In this case, you can program a certain time for turning lamps on and off so that they do not work in bright natural light. Usually the light day for plants should vary from 11 to 14 hours per day, so you will need to calculate the time and set the set point on the outlet. This idea will make the lighting of the aquarium automatic. Another important point - do not buy Chinese LEDs, becausethey quickly fail during operation.

timer socket Another interesting idea for creating a self-made lighting system:

That's all I wanted to tell you about how to make aquarium lighting by yourself and what lamp options are best for different home conditions. We hope that the information was interesting and useful for you!

Also read:

• How to choose bathroom fixtures
• Wiring diagram for LED strip
• Comparison of incandescent and