FishProfiles.com Message Forums

Seeing as I'm on a significantly different day-night schedule from my fish, it'd be nice to be able to see them even in the middle of the night. I'd rather not interrupt the period of darkness, I just want a dim view of the interior of the tank. Anybody have any suggestions on how to accomplish this?

They sell moonlights for that. They are rather expensive though.... But whatever floats your boat. I'm not sure exactly how moonlights work, but I know they are a low wattage light with a bluish tinge that resembles moonlight.

---

They shade the glow of it with their mossy-misty costumes,
They wear masks of silk, porcelain, brass, and silver,
So as not to mislead with their own, ordinary faces.

I've a similar problem coming home late at night from work. My solution was 3 night lights from Wal-mart. They sell a 2-pack of night lights with on/off light sensor built in for about $5. I replaced the clear bulbs with blue ones giving off 4 watts each. With the light diffusers, the trio give off about 9 watts. This gives my tank a nice blue glow at night. Just enough light to see the fish amongst the aquascape. Also acts as a nightlight so I don't have to turn on any lights and disturb the fish when I get home.

Walmart huh? Interesting! Now, do you replace the bulbs in the morning for regular lighting? I also have a late schedule, (second shift) and would like to know if you switch out the bulbs? how do you do it?

From Dolf's description, it sounds like he replaces the bulbs with blue ones indefinitely. The nightlight he's talking about has a light sensor that tells it when to turn on and off, so there's no need to change the bulb, since it will put out an insignificant amount of blue light during the day.

So, my options so far:

1. Go get an aquarium moon light. Presumably the $25-50 single-LED kind, not the $200 special strip lights.

2. Go to Wal-Mart and get simple and small lights that I can then put blue bulbs in.

3. Build my own; I found a plan at http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_nightlight.htm for making a strip of night lights out of LED bulbs.

[span class="edited"][Edited by Silverlight 2004-09-02 07:59][/span]

A simple Black Light will work...I have one on my Hermit Crab tank and it makes all there shells glow at night..they are cheap and I just interchange them out with my normal light strip at night...i have since purchased one for my 29gal, and all the ornaments and gravel rock glow at night.....Just make sure you dont touch the light with your fingers while changing out the bulbs....Really cool look....

i thought black lights were bad for fish rtanks... couldhave sworn i heard that some where... could be wrong though

me

I bought a 5 LED moonlight from this guy about a month ago:
http://www.thelebos.com

I mounted it inside the canopy on my 75G. The lights come with a dimmer, so you can adjust the brightness to your preference. I have mine down pretty low, so that it takes my eyes a little time to adjust with the room completely darkened.

i never heard of black lights being bad in themselves, just not usable as the only light source. plus, some fish look ghastly under them. the walmart idea sounds like a winner.

A little more detail on what I'm using:
I permanently replaced the clear bulbs with light blue bulbs. The lights have a built in sensor so they only come on when the main lights are off. The lights are mounted on a Christmas tree extension cord. It has 3 plugs spaced out on the cord about 2 feet apart. This is plugged into a groung fault outlet to remove shock and fire hazard. The lights give the tank a nice blue glow allowing me to see the fish without disturbing them. The drawback with this system is space. The lights and cord are a bit bulky and probably would not work in a close fitting hood.
I've seen the led moonlights in action and they are very nice. They have slightly more flicker to better simulate moonlight under the waves but are very expensive. My total cost was about $20

*thinks to herself* This might make a good project for me with some cheap LED's from radioshack and a soldering iron.

My suggestion would just be that if you're handy, take a trip to the local radioshack or electronics store, see if you can find some blue LED's and what you would need to hook them up on a simple timer and mount them on the inside of your hood. Can't be that hard, can it?

I wanted to be able to see my fish at night too, so i bought a 'Interpet Blue Moon 18" x 1" 15w' (my tanks only 24" long) it "Enhances blue fish and helps to fluoresce corals and can reduce 'startling' when the lights are turned on and off. SUITABLITY - Marine and freshwater nocturnal viewing" and a separate starter light unit thingy, plug it into a timer and away it goes, comes on for a couple hours before my main lights in the morning goes off 1 hour after, then comes on 1 hour before my main lights go out and for a couple hours after that for night viewing... i might start leaving it on all day...

Chrism- I do the same with my 50/50 Coralife lights. I have the Actinic blue lights come on first to wake up the fish. I have them on after the daylights go off to ease the fish into sleepmode. The Actinic blues would make a great night light if a small, low wattage size is used. When left on during the day they realy bring out the colors, especially blues.
I never thought of going to the electronics store for led lights. You could probably wire in a dimmer to allow you to adjust the output levels.

*thinks to herself* This might make a good project for me with some cheap LED's from radioshack and a soldering iron.

I did that. I bought one of the "hobby boxes", drilled out small holes for the led, wired them up with resistors, soldered, connected to a power supply, put rubber feet on the hobby box so it'd sit on top of the glass top...aimed the led's and then siliconed them in place.

The site that was linked earlier , http://www.thelebos.com looks to be only a bit more expensive than what I could make them at radio shack for.. and that's with no dimmer at radioshack. Having to buy the power supply is what messes it up - it's like 15 bucks or more by itself. If you already have a power supply that you can match up resistors for that would work, I spose it might be a worthwhile project though, but most of your household/computer leftover power supplies are going to be too powerful.

[span class="edited"][Edited by jake 2004-09-04 06:56][/span]

Thanks for the input, all!

Well, here's my basic plan. Today, I'm going to check a Walmart I know of to see if I can dig up nightlights such as have been described, and if they're suitable for my situation. If that fails, or I don't like what I find, then I'll probably do a little consumer research and then order them from Brent Lebo. I'm not nearly enough of a DIY person to start buying random parts off the shelf from Radio Shack.

EDIT: While I was happy to get any suggestion I can, my strip light already takes every possible inch of spare space on the tank. It's right to the hinge on the glass cover in the front, and right to the filter input tube on the back. I ended up shaping the plastic part of the glass cover with no room for error.

[span class="edited"][Edited by Silverlight 2004-09-04 10:24][/span]

Silverlight, I have the perfect solution: Bigger tank