jack--sos

Would this work as an aquarium light if i get a glass hood and attach the light to the wall or make a support for it? http://nextday.diy.com/app/jsp/produ...roductId=56271

Im guessing it will be abit extreme because it is a floodlight

mathas

Is this for your 80g?

jack--sos

Yeah it will be for my 80g

mathas

If I had to guess, I would say it's not an ideal choice for a 48" planted tank, unless you were thinking of using more than one. This is one of the situations where just seeing a large wattage rating doesn't necessarily imply a significant increase in usable light.

Given the shape of the reflector and enclosure on the link you provided, I'm guessing you would have to mount it relatively high above the tank to illuminate the entire 48". A user at PlantedTank.net, i4x4nMore, presented some very good data on a thread a couple of weeks ago that showed the impact distance had on usable light, which can be found here.

But for that price, I guess you could try it and only have a lost a relatively small amount of money if it doesn't work out.

jack--sos

i was thinking about getting 2 and putting one at each side but slighty angle it inwards so it does light the whole tank. Wow that thread is amazing, guess i will have to experiment wiv everything for a while to get everything just right . so in theory a couple of those lights should work?

mathas

Two should be good, with experimentation.

jack--sos

cool, thanks for your help mathas

Reid

great link to i4x4nMore's answers to lighting! That should be a must read for anyone with lighting questions! Thanks again for the great link!

serissime

There are a lot of people that do DIY lighting on other forums. AC has a whole DIY section. You could do a google search. Then again, a lot of those people are retrofitting old hoods. The reflector and style of bulb needed for good distribution of light is a little different than that floodlight. You could try to fit a hood with a good reflector and a bunch of compact fluorescent lights if you wanted to. I've seen a DIY light like that before.

Psychlist1972

I believe these are the same lights I used for a non-aquarium project a while back. If so, they get pretty hot - untouchably so. If you keep them inverted, with no venting, I imagine they will get way too hot for this use.

Not sure if that's an issue for you or not, but keeping them inverted and running 12 hours a day seems dangerous, and not particularly friendly to the electric bill

Pete

aquarist48

Good afternoon. I agree with Psychlist1972. If there is any way possible to see one of these in person and turned on, would be a great help. I believe those are the same type of lights we use to light the outside kitchen. They are way too high for me to see if they are hot or not but if memory serves me correctly they do get extremely hot. Too, as Psychlist mentioned take into consideration your electric bill.

Have you checked for lighting in Fish Lore DIY section? Forum Home Page and scroll down a bit.
http://www.fishlore.com/searchresult...sa=Search#1390
Ken