I am currently setting up my biggest tank at the moment - 126 Liters, Eheim 80x35x45cm tank.
Since I got my M21H with the GT FC40 5000K 36° I was dreaming about using that LED and lens for that tank.
Today was the final day, it has been done:
The heatsink is from a 99 Cent LED Spot from a surplus store. It clearly was new old stock with 15 year old LEDs inside. But the heatsink is nice and heavy.
So I designed some parts to make the lens fit the heatsink and to fasten the heatsink to a 20mm PVC pipe that is beeing hold by another 3d printed part onto the tank.
Overall, I am very pleased. A 45° lens would be even better, but I kinda like that the area where the filter in- and outlets are are darker. You can also see the ripple of the water on the stones which I love.
The tank will inhibit White Cloud Mountain Minnows, some loaches (Pseudogastromyzon Myersi) and probably amano shrimp.
The very coarse soil is there so that the eggs from the minnows will fall in between and not get eaten by the shrimp.
It’s not my first tank, I have 4 other smaller shrimp-only tanks.
A bunch of small Bucephalandra will be planted on the wood.
I am always grinning when I see the tank because I find it so beautiful.
Just wanted to unlock that thought in your brain that it doesn’t always need to be some bar-style light above a fishtank that lights up everything with basically no shadows.
Nice build, 3d print and all. What kind of filtration are you using.
I have a few of Hillstream loaches, they seam to only thrive in the very cleanest water. I use a Fluval fx6 and an Ehiem biopower; 3 filters, 3 carbon just to keep a 200 gallon tank going.
I use the Tetra EX 1000 Plus, a filter with up to 1150l/h and a lot of bio media. Should be enough, I think.
I also have 3d printed an outlet that drives most of the outflow of the filter towards the dark rock in the center since I know that those loaches like current
This is a beautiful setup. I imagine that led is pretty close to natural sunlight? I only have the very +DUV orange 1800k, and the more neutral but still yellowgreenish 4500k.
This post almost makes me want to get fishtank again, but I know my very dumb cat will relentlessly try to get in.
Despite the specified color temperature of 5000-5500 K, my sample achieved a CCT of over 6200 K in the test. Nevertheless, it lies almost perfectly on the black body curve, resulting in a pure white without color distortion. This LED is highly recommended for lighting tasks where color fidelity and the purest possible white are important.
Which at least in my configuration is absolutely true, very pure white. Not very efficient, but very beautiful.
