Cool Fish Tank Lighting on the Cheap
by Shadow
I have been experimenting with lighting for a while now. Florescent tubes light our tanks up great, but there are side effects.
1. Cost. They are quite expensive to run and the tubes themselves are not cheap to replace.
2. They produce heat and can raise the temperature of your tank
3. they take up a lot of space and require you to have a lid of some sort to house them.
Aquarium lighting
Here is a method of lighting that?s both affordable, and also will not heat up your tank. You will also not require a lid of any type and you will also gain a handy place for storing your fishy items. Your tank must be next to a wall however. Also not sure about availability outside of the UK. If you cant get hold of these small florescent lights. You could still use standard ones if you don’t already have a tank lighting setup.
I have blacked out the room so that the only light will be coming from this tiny 8 watt light. For this experiment, I needed to find a way to temporary suspend the light above the tank. A long length of wood and some insulation tape was just the job. so, how do we attach these lights? From your local DIY store buy a long shelf. The same length as your tank and about 1/2 the width. secure this shelf about 10″ above your tank and screw the lights below the shelf like this one.
The lights themselves are low energy strip lights. They come in various sizes, can be linked together so there is only need for one outlet and produce very little heat.
Tank lights
Fish tank lighting
For this experiment, I will be using a single 8w 12? low energy light. Time to switch on. I must say that this little light is very impressive. All the light is concentrated downwards and as it has a built in diffuser, it cuts through the water nicely. You can clearly see the pot lit up at the bottom of the tank. and from the side, the results are even better. Remember this is just one little 12″ 8 watt tube lighting almost half of a massive 6 foot long tank
Fish tank lighting
I would say for a subtle lighting solution, use one light for evry 2 foot of tank. Placed in a row along the bottom edge of the shelf.
for a brighter lighting setup you could add 1 light per foot abd double them up so you have 2 rows of lights along the length of the shelf. You also gain a handy storage space on top of the shelf for your nets, food and other fishy items 🙂