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I would like to view my cats at night, without use of a flashlight to freak them out. However, I am a college student, hence the option of a moonlight PC is out of my price range. What other "night lights" would be good options?

they make a regular flourescent moonlight... called Blue Moon I believe.

if you have any electronics inclination at all you can buy some of the bright blue LEDs, LED mounts, and an adjustable potentioemeter. you will need to assemble this yourself but you can create the same moonlight effect as the expensive lighting systems. the Current USA lighting fixtures with the Lunar Light use high output blue LEDs i beleive.

you will need: (using radioshack.com as examples)
LED Holders
high intensity blue LEDs
Batteries, AA or C, depending on how many LEDs you have and how quickly the batteries drain.

the Blue LEDs are 4.5V max so you dont want more that 3 AA or C batteries. the LED can handle 20Ma (milliamps) so i dont beleive the batteries will supply too much power.

if you can find a 4 to 4.5 volt DC output adapter you can use that as your power source. you can use a bigger power supply but it is going to involve more electronics knowledge, which I would be happy to help out on. you will need to add resistors to total to a certain resistance (ohms) depending on the voltage being supplied.

a potentiometer is a small knob that changes resistance depending on the knob position, I would suggest a 100ohm Pot. to adjust the intensity of the LED.

I dont see you spending more than about 30 dollars for all the components.

you will mount the LED holders in you tank lid, either with your current lighting or just in an open spot where you can drill a small hole for the 5mm LED. to wire the LED you will need to determine which post of the LED is positive (+) and which is negative (-). Generally I beleive the longer post is positive (+). the LED will not light up if the leads are reversed. this is where you need some experience or where youre going to get some experience. you need a soldering iron, theyre usually pretty cheap, ive found them for 10 bux before (US) for a simple soldering iron that will do for this application. solder all the connections, let them cool, and then use some type of unsulator on the LED leads and wires, this can be shrink wrap or it can be hot glue. if using hot glue try to keep the LED lense clean and only apply the glue to the exposed wires, make certain no wires are crossed. then, install the LEDs in the holders and the holders into your drilled holes in your lid.

and now you have a poorman's lunar lighting system

I havent tested this yet, I probably will this weekend. I have created similar devices so all the inofrmation should be correct. if someone sees something that is wrong or that may be improved, please chime in and let us know.

so, did anyone read what I posted? hehehe
have I warped some minds with my do it yourself case mod turned tank mod backyard engineering? or is the board just that slow these days...

hehehe

I think it went over a lot of heads In another case-mod turned fish mod, CPU or power supply fans work great as a poor man's chiller. Using a seven inch fan running during the daytime I'm able to keep a 125 gallon at 72-74ºF, which is amazing considering the ambient temperature in the apartment is ~80º with the tank running 84-86º w/o the fan. You get a bit of evaporation, but not a big deal considering how much cooler the tank runs.

Rusty

*cough* are we going to turn this into a case modding thread? I wonder how cold cathode lighting would work over a tank...

I read something several years ago that mention red light as a good way to view fish in the dark. It seemed that fish cannot see red. Is this true? I don't remember where I read this. I have tried in the past with a flash light with a red tissue paper and it seem to work.

I'm new here, but I think I saw one of those clip-on Moon-Lights for less than $20 from Coralife.

here's all the details you need for cheap fluorescent lighting (moon light).
i did this on my catfish tank so that i might get to see them. this not a link to a shop so no worries, it's just a link to a fish forum with all the details and picture of how to do it. hope this helps






http://www.fishforums.net/index.php?s=0 ... opic=46380

I have a red cold cath over my river tank... and it works great. I also used a adjustable dc converter so I can adjust the brightness of the light by using less voltage.

Cheers