# DIY Lightning for young saulosi's



## TheJ0kerrr (Aug 14, 2012)

I bought a used 20g without a top a few months ago and decided to build my own lightning unit using LED's I bought on Ebay. I used a steel wall stud (2x2) to mount the leds on and learned how to solder electrical connections on the fly... The plan was to have a planted tank, but I had to delay that project when the only saulosi's I could find were too small to put in my 55g. So I decided to let them grow up a little in the 20g first. Either way, I needed some lightning!

So here is the result!

First solders...not so great...but getting decent on the right one









Mounted on wall stud using nylon washers









All mounted and soldered...6x whites and 2x royal blues









Power on test!! One led in the middle didn't lit up...not sure if I fried it while soldering or if it was defective...will have to replace it either way









Testing the result on top of the tank


















And finally, a quick video of the saulosi's after I introduced them to the tank!


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## ShortBus (Aug 17, 2005)

Good idea on the metal stud as your heat sink

I have some LEDs Im going to use on my 155g and spacing is what Im trying to work out now
What spacing did you use
what optics did your LEDs come with
Thanks


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## TheJ0kerrr (Aug 14, 2012)

I didn't use much of a scientific method to figure out the spacing... Since I had only 8 left after frying the first 2 trying to test them on their own, I just spaced them equally on the whole length. That makes them 3.5" appart (center to center). They are 3W each, but I have no idea what kind of effect it will have on plants, hehe.

As for optics, I don't use anything other than the leds themselves. Would probably be a good thing to look into that. I did use the idea from this article for the cover. http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/d ... covers.php . I think it helps spreading the light more evenly.

Today, I'm going to buy the wood necessary to build a canopy.


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## rgr4475 (Mar 19, 2008)

Looks good!


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## GTZ (Apr 21, 2010)

Nicely done! If you wouldn't mind, could you PM me the ebay seller info?


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## letsgoflyers6387 (Jul 19, 2010)

Cool! Well done. In the interest of time, I bought the Marineland Double Bright LED system for my tank, but I should've done my own LED setup.


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## TheJ0kerrr (Aug 14, 2012)

Just a quick follow-up on this setup. After several months using it, I had some serious algae issues. The 3w leds were too powerful for such a small tank (20g long) and I lost control of it. It would probably work out with some CO2 injection and a lot of plants, but that wasn't my case. I did try a planted tank in this one after moving the saulosi's to my 55g. It worked for a little while, but eventually, algae took over and when cianobacteria appeared and I couldn't find a way to get rid of it, i ended up bleaching the whole tank... 8)

I did not give up however and rebuilt an identical lighting unit, but with 1W leds this time. It gives me plenty of light for that tank size and so far, no algae (although way too early to celebrate). I just started building a bigger one for my 55g and will use 32 of these 1W leds. Hopefully, that's the right number! Will probably start a new thread about that one as it's a bit different and will have a sleeker look 

As for the saulosi's, they're all doing very good in the 55g and gave me my first fry last week!


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