The official EDGE thread

[LICfish]

Here's mine. I just redecorated it

[timfok]

Hey guys,

I'm looking to upgrade the lighting in my 23L fluval edge, as I wanted to have a heavily planted tank.

I've done a fair bit of research on this, I've upgraded my bulb fixings for the larger ones to house bigger led bulbs, and I was hoping to add the popular mini fluorescent bulb in the gap between the hood and light arm.

The thing is, I've searched everywhere and I can't find a supplier in the UK that makes a bulb slim and small enough, that is daylight kelvin.

What are people doing here? Buying a US bulb and converter? Another type of bulb?

Another thought I had was to make an extension of the light arm using fibreglass and house another pair of MR16 bulbs. What are people's thoughts on this? Less effective than a small fluorescent?

Thanks

[Mxx]

Originally Posted by timfok

Hey guys,

I'm looking to upgrade the lighting in my 23L fluval edge, as I wanted to have a heavily planted tank.

I've done a fair bit of research on this, I've upgraded my bulb fixings for the larger ones to house bigger led bulbs, and I was hoping to add the popular mini fluorescent bulb in the gap between the hood and light arm.

The thing is, I've searched everywhere and I can't find a supplier in the UK that makes a bulb slim and small enough, that is daylight kelvin.

What are people doing here? Buying a US bulb and converter? Another type of bulb?

Another thought I had was to make an extension of the light arm using fibreglass and house another pair of MR16 bulbs. What are people's thoughts on this? Less effective than a small fluorescent?

Thanks

You could order one from the States. You shouldn't need a transformer though, just an outlet adapter.

Personally I'm just doing DIY Cree LED stars which I'm mounting inside a straight length of aluminum channel which I'll be setting on the top glass.

[sockfish]

The stock light on a 12 Gal Edge I bought on Craigslist has burned out. Can someone direct me to a source for a new one or some thread that describes installing some other light? I found the website for a new replacement light, but it's around $70.00 [yikes]. Any other suggestions?


sox

[tetraontheedge]

Sockfish, I ordered my replacement from a similar site (or perhaps the same one you found) at a similarly horrible price.

Have you considered the led wholesalers site? (You would put the two words together plus dot com).

You can mount a bunch of rigid, somewhat insulated lights on your burnt out light arm with zip ties.

I am somewhat selfish in mentioning this because I am looking to sell my lights that I did this with on my Edge 6 gallon.

The only reason I am not still using it is that after a spectacular HVAC outage at work that went on for six months and killed all my fish, shrimp, and 2/3s of my plants, followed by cold that created excessive condensation, the 2-prong part of my original light arm rusted out and the leds on my superbright mr11's came unglued.

The led wholesalers light strips are okay, though.

I decided, upon restarting my tank properly last week, to upgrade to the 12 gallon replacement light arm.

So...if you are interested in three functioning strip lights and all connecting parts, including transformer, pm me. Also, I have my old light arm which may still work, and I'm willing to mail it to you at cost of shipping if you want--you could change out the sockets and put some crazy strong led's in there, maybe?

Elsewhere in this thread people say you may need a different transformer for that, so I'm not totally sure if that would work, though.

[du3ce]

not planted but heres my 6g edge shellie tank

[giantdny]

Here are my two. I just got them last week. Used and free.

And here's how they sit on my dresser. A little cloudy. It's from right when I set them up.

[FlyingHellFish]

^ How? Were the tanks owned by some drug lord?

[giantdny]

Lol no. Just a good buddy who had one of his big tanks crack. He replaced it and felt like he had too many tanks to take care of. He knew I had nice plans for some new tanks so he offered them to me. Lucky me I love them. I will be transporting my OEBT and crs into them when they are completely done cycling. They have the fluval led upgrade too.also I'd like to add more led's to them.

[FlyingHellFish]

^ Don't brother, I got the 42 LEDs on the 6 gallon and the light still sucks. It's the hood that blocks the light to the side. I going to rescape mine where the plants are around the middle.

[giantdny]

Really. Well maybe ill work on some reflective material for the hood.

[FlyingHellFish]

You can't defy the laws of physics, you will just increase the intensity of light in the middle.

[giantdny]

I understand that but if you can add lights and reflect that light throughout the tank that should be better.

[tetraontheedge]

I have some mirror/foil-type shelf paper. Does anyone think that applying that to the inside of the black square cover (not on the screen ventilation part, of course) would help light distribution?

I'm using the 42 led on a 6G and I feel like the light in the corners is better than when I had souped up led's on the halogen light arm. Still, I'm curious what benefits might come from reflector-izing the interior sides of the cover (maybe none)?

[shift]

Led's are fairly directional and I dont think much of the beam hits the sides.. you have a some minor refraction but i dont think it would be a noticeable différence