PC parts people? Help making a strip of PC fans for aquarium light ventilation/bulb cooling.

[fitz19d]

Try blowing more bubbles. Water cooling is better then air

What are you talking about? I don't want salt spray hitting the lights and bubbles in a salt tank is kinda not considered a good aesthetic.


@grey, I went into above kinda why some in the hobby are starting to shy back away from led for corals. Particularly in large tanks where getting full diffused lighting with leds is trickier. (Need tight lenses to penetrate deep but wide to actually get coverage, the cost to put like 6 high end 3 foot units over this thing would be astronomical. (Like @ 5-800/e)

[Firehaus]

All depends on how deep the corals in your tank are found in the ocean wether they ever get a wider spectrum of light.

I'm guessing your trying to have a heavy stoney coral tank?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[TheGrey]

@grey, I went into above kinda why some in the hobby are starting to shy back away from led for corals. Particularly in large tanks where getting full diffused lighting with leds is trickier. (Need tight lenses to penetrate deep but wide to actually get coverage, the cost to put like 6 high end 3 foot units over this thing would be astronomical. (Like @ 5-800/e)

Ah- yikes, that's far more expensive than I thought. I hadn't thought about the water diffusing the led lighting, either. Hmm. Okay, what about those little clip-on fans? Instead of one big fan that's noisy, the little clip-on fans may be able to cool down those lights some an be a bit cheaper, since they run @ $10-15 each. You could plug them into a power strip with a timer. Does your aquarium hood have a sheet of glass between the bulbs and the space above the water's surface? If not, you may want to think about getting a slim sheet of plexiglass to slide between the two.

[fitz19d]

Ah- yikes, that's far more expensive than I thought. I hadn't thought about the water diffusing the led lighting, either. Hmm. Okay, what about those little clip-on fans? Instead of one big fan that's noisy, the little clip-on fans may be able to cool down those lights some an be a bit cheaper, since they run @ $10-15 each. You could plug them into a power strip with a timer. Does your aquarium hood have a sheet of glass between the bulbs and the space above the water's surface? If not, you may want to think about getting a slim sheet of plexiglass to slide between the two.

The clip ons could work to at least get either end where the ballasts are. Most little clip ons arn't all that quiet though. Reefers are weird and value mega silence. (If fans off, can barely hear a little trickle despite the tank having like 2000gph of flow in it. Certainly would be simpler than trying to clip up a bunch of fans and make sure I have right power supply. As I said it's voodoo so someone has to hold my hand or be off the shelf.

Plexi cuts down on PAR and I imagine can filter certain spectrum out. Salt tank hoods are sorta high. But we just learn to deal with bits rusting out over time. Every year or so hood will come off and semi torn apart to clean the bulb reflectors.

@Fire. Yeah still a mixed reef, but vs my start with softies into lps and a sps or two. It's now buncha sps high with a smattering of LPS on sand and frogspawn/hammers/etc. Also got some rock flowers and a few anemones. Currently at 8 bulb T5 (80w) and 2 of the big stunner strips just for blues for viewing or before lights on. I'm actually reducing my lighting period because it looks like stuff is starting to bleach out a bit. May even end up going to 6 bulb and like I said, get some fancier blue leds for techno rave party. (Was cool a garf bonsai I sold when I had to move a couple years ago came back to me as a full colony. Saw today a guy who got an orange ric of mine is now like 12 of them and the mother is huge)

Wish my phone could take non washed out video of it for yall.

[spqrzilla]

PC case fans can be inexpensive but they run off 12 volt DC

http://www.microcenter.com/category/4294966926/Fans

[mackbamf]

I had LED's on my reef tank and was able to keep both hard and soft corals. They give great light throughout the tank.

[COcz]

I would go ask at a decent hydroponics store. They deal with this stuff all the time.