Anyone using alternate, less expensive lighting methods?

[r2nj]

Has anyone used/explored some cheaper/more efficient ways of lighting? For the Fish Only tanks, you're typically not concerned about intensity, as well as the 10k to 20k spectrum. There's a lot of LED bulbs (MR16, floods, etc.), as well as PC that are a lot cheaper than your typical aquarium/reef lighting. I just saw led MR16's at Lowes for $25/piece.

Love to hear some thoughts/comments. Thanks.

 

[kaylo]

I thought about this as I was looking at lighting my 135g I am turning from reef to FOWLR after losing everything to marine velvet. Didn't have much left in the coral department either. =(

The problem I see expecially in my case with a 6' tank is the amount of fixtures and bulbs needed to light the tank. I have LED GU10 bulbs in my home and they are very focused and throw out a pretty narrow beam of light. It would probably end up costing me more then buying a LED fixture made for marine tanks or a DIY kit.

That brings up the other question of any type of drop ceiling light or clip on light you would use as your fixture shorting out due to not being properly sealed from the salt or evaporation from your tank. I get very concerned with this as I had a clip on fan over my sump last summer that got salt creep in it and literally exploded melted plastic all over and tripped my GFCI. Luckily I was home when it happened, but it got me to thinking about what I am putting electrical over or around my tank. I never had this problem with clip lights over a fuge, but am I playing russian roulette with those as well?

I think with all the interest in LED's over our tanks and the success alot of the people who already have them will have these fixture companies hopefully gearing towards that technology and drive down the price. I like the new Marineland fixtures as an idea for a cheap LED fixture, but they just aren't there yet. They don't throw out enough light if you have a deep tank.

 

[FMarini]

for many years i used home depot shop lights 48"-2 bulbs, $7/ea) and GE DXF40 6500 K florescent bulbs ($4/ea). Eeach lighting setup cost me $15.00, I used 2 over my tanks and it was plenty to see the fish and for the fish to see its food.
Lighting doesnt have to be difficult or expensive for FO tanks. Infact excessive lighting in a FO usually results in nuisance algae growth, do to the higher organic nutrients in the water. So I would use ambient room light until i came home from work and turned on the Flor lights.

 

[r2nj]

Yea, I'd like to go towards LED's, mostly because of the efficiency and eco-friendliness. The issue for me is that most LED fixtures that are geared towards the hobby are very expensive. When I see these LED mr16's and other LED screw in bulbs at the local home improvement stores (and at roughtly a quarter to a third of the price of "aquarium style" LED bulbs), it's makes me wonder, why couldn't I use those?

 

[namxas]

You can use them. The main difference is light output and color temp (the "aquarium" lamps are closer to 10k K). We've used some of these on smaller setups.

In fact, we have a few various DIY LED lighting schemes on a few of our tanks. On one such setup, it was as simple as removing the HQI lamp on our NC28 and replacing it with a white LED "rope" coiled around the lid. It's not super bright, but it was cheap, easy, and works fine for a scorp tank.