DIY Led Aquarium Night Lights
Led’s make great night lights, especially in an aquarium!
The T5HO lights were a little bright for watching movies at night so i decided to dim down night mode using leds.
For this project i decided to use a strip of RGB leds so i could pick custom colors and fine tune the look of this tank.
I found a 75′ roll of black thermostat control wire for 3$ at princess auto which was just about perfect for making my led power wire. The only down fall was the wire was 3 wire.. so i added a 4th strand and use small chucks of heat shrink to a single 4 wire cable.
heat shrink became a very clean way to join the wires for the RGB Leds.
The RGB leds have 3m double sided tape as a backing that made it a breeze to stock to the T5HO fixture. My only worry is if the heat from the T5’s will loosen the led sticker or not.. but time will tell!
A simple RGB controller let you pick the perfect color. You can pick your color, fading effects, brightness and speed.
I got this controller fairly cheap off ebay and it works perfectly.
The lighting will be controlled by a dual channel timer. This will allow me to turn on the leds when the T5 light turns off (and not blind me for night time movie nights)
The power bar i used also has usb ports that will power a future arduino aquarium controller project.
Time for a test.. and it works!
So far the Aqua blue color is my favorite and will look great once the tank is filled.
Test with the tank full of water and plants.. It looks awesome!
