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Red Lights

Ok I received my 'Waterproof LED Color Light Bulb with Wireless Remote' WOW this bulb is awesome! It has 13 different colors, a dimmer, plus it has color changing mode, strobe mode and a smooth transition color changing mode. The bulb is the perfect brightness for an aquarium night light. As D suggested, the only problem is that when you lose power or turn the bulb off with a swith rather than the remote when it turns on it goes into DEMO mode and displays all the colors and colr changing modes. So basically it cant be used with a timer, which is OK for me as I don't use a timer on my 'moon lights'
In all I am very pleased with the purchase.
 
You would have have been better off to biuld a diy led fixture you can dim and on it's own driver. This gives me ideas of using reds on single driver, blues on another and whites for the last driver that way they can all be powered seperately to give you that daylight, actinic blue and introducing nocturnal (red) veiwing. This could get pricey depending on the size of the tank you are looking at lighting up but the upfront cost of leds has already proven to be worth it with power savings, and bulb replacement essentially a thing of the past. I've gone from MH's and T5ho's over my reef to overdriven 1w leds . I get more light out of 135 1wleds using daylight white's, royal blue's and violet blue's than a 250w mh using 48w of t5ho actinic lighitng and have seen much better polyp extentions, faster growth rate of stony corals, and superior par levels. Maybe if we started asking some of these companies that are producing these fixtures for little tailor made adjustments they would be willing to work with you or catch on to what is cutting edge in the hobby. I know a few led guy's that could make this dream a reality at a not too bad price considering all the new stuff that is coming out lowering the price of what's availible to comptete in a rapidly changing industry.
 
Sources and Styles of Red Lights for nocturnals and night viewing

Starting this thread to record members experiences and finds with red lights either for night viewing and/or for tank night lighting (particularly for nocturnals).

This is a simple little gadget I found on eBay and have been quite pleased with it. The light is a very small plastic cap with an LED that snaps on a 9 volt battery. The swivel model (recommended) can be left on the battery and swiveled to turn it off (watch the video if you get one as it was not immediately obvious how to turn it off).

 

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in a clamp on light.

Cheap, easy to get and easy to change the amount of light getting into the tank either by aiming or by covering the clamp light with paper.
 
Does anyone know if there is a light fixture that can alternate colors, or at least bulbs in use?

I have my light for daytime on a timer, and would like it if instead of turning the light off, it switched to redlight somehow.

The technology exists to build something like this, even in a DIY fashion which I may end up building if I can't find it - for the moment though, I am wondering if anyone has seen anything like this?

It would be very nice if I didn't have to manually do anything with lighting, and such a device should work even after a power outage
 
I recently switched two tanks from PC's to 2 channel programmable LED's (note in 2010 I said I was S L O W L Y changing to LED's :roll:) with a built in timer (love them). Unfortunately, there are only blue and white lights so I still have to add a red night light and not use the built-in option (I did experiment with the blue moonlight and Shiitake did NOT like the blue, reverting to my red resulted in her coming out much more often almost immediately). For my largest tank (one of two with the new lights) I added this bubbler with the red lights from Marineland. There is a separate plug for the light and it can be set on a timer. The bubbles are not a great idea for octopuses but it can also be used as a light only fixture. With the bubbler and light on, my grandson asked why I had a fire in the tank and it does look a but volcano like.

I know there are places that will let you specify the LED color combination you want in a semi-custom light fixture but I don't know of any that give you this option and have programmable channels for each color (which is what you would need for an all-in-one). Doing a quick search I did see some with 3/4/5 programmable channels but there were only a few red lights added to blue or white for the channel you would want all red. If you could find a unit that would allow you to order the channel colors or easily replace the LED's in one channel, this would works for creating an all-in-one with a red night light. Alternately, if you could find a light with a separate moon light (ie moon light is not part of the daytime lighting) and could replace the LED's it would create a simpler solution. However, finding an aquarium light (ie one that is water proof) that allows for changing the LED's is a long shot. You might find plant lights with this ability but personal experience (and a bunch of fried connections) suggests this is not a good idea for both longevity and safety.
 
Getting a custom aquarium light made and I have a choice of types of red light:

I'm not sure but I would guess 'Far Red' is the best?
  • Red (625nm)
  • Deep Red (660nm)
  • Far Red (730nm)

 
I think this is where i should post this question, so with my setup i bought, the lights that came with can alternate between your normal daytime light and then it can switch to a kind of cobalt blue. My question is, does the blue lighting have the same effect for nocturnal viewing as red light? Or, if i get a nocturnal Octo, would i need to invest in red lighting?

Thanks,
Chad
 
I think this is where i should post this question, so with my setup i bought, the lights that came with can alternate between your normal daytime light and then it can switch to a kind of cobalt blue. My question is, does the blue lighting have the same effect for nocturnal viewing as red light? Or, if i get a nocturnal Octo, would i need to invest in red lighting?

Thanks,
Chad
If it is a nocturnal species the blue will be too bright, like daylight. I was interested in getting a custom light made, since they are not much more expensive than buying one outright, but none would be willing to do one that can alternate between red and white.

I ended up going with just the Marineland airbubblers with LED lights, as they can be used as just lights. I bought two of them for my 56 gallon cube tank which work perfectly so far.
 
Radio Shack is going out of business and has everything priced half off. John just brought me some red water resistant LED strip lights. He sucks at regular gift giving, but I just never know when when I'll get something cool "just because..."
 

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