This is awesome!

[Bal]

When I open the canopy on my tank the spots from the track lighting hit the water surface and create a lovely rippled sunlight effect on the water of my cichlid tank. Checking out how this is achieved in reef tanks only showed me that it takes special expensive lighting to get this effect. So I set out to find an inexpensive alternative to rippled sunlight, and also moonlights for night.

My son bought two tiny fog lights for his motorcycle which cost him $10. He decided to go with bigger lights and gave me the first set. He wired them to a 12V adapter and we attached them to the inside of the canopy. Voila! Instant dappled sunlight!
I turned off the main flourescent lights to see what it would look like with just the spots and it looks amazing. Although not blue like moonlight, it is very pretty. I am going to put blue car strip LED on for moonlight, but the real neat thing is finding a really cheap way to get a certain effect without having to spend a lot to do so.

Here is a pic showing a small section of the tank with only one spot (need a bulb for the second one), taken with tank lights off. What you of course dont see is the rippling.

Bev

[aSmallFish]

Nice .

[luvfishies]

Yeah, the rippled effect is achieved with "spot" lighting rather than "tube" lighting, like flourescents.

I like it, too!