Nano Reef in the Office

[arash53]

Good job, really nice and neat DIY setup. I cant wait to see it up and running.

I have a nano FW tank in the office, I was thinking about setting up a SW ,but I thought it will be too much hassle preparing water in the office. I really like to see how you do it.

[jostafew]

Hey ScubaSteve, I've got the standard Emitter on Star type LED modules all grouped as tightly together as possible, but you're right the multiple emitter in a single module would be better. That being said I think I may have proper solution should it come to that, and frankly I'm amazed we don't see this from the high end vendors yet. I can't find the source right now (have an e-mail at home) but it's a thin film that's matte on one side to gather and disperse light from multiple LED emitters, then on the other side the surface is made up of tiny lenses which then redirect all that diffused light at your choice of angles (anywhere from say 45-120deg optics). So what you end up with is essentially one large light source of uniform color temperature. You'll lose the nice glitter lines, but then the disco ball effect is also gone. Ultimately I beleive the multiple emitter on chip containing many colors will be the best long term solution, but until that is readily available (for cheap) I think this film is the answer in the DIY LED world. I was going to give it a shot on this project but the $50 sample fee put that on hold until my plan to maintain a calm water surface fails hahah. Will post when I find the source again.

[ScubaSteve]

Originally Posted by jostafew

Hey ScubaSteve, I've got the standard Emitter on Star type LED modules all grouped as tightly together as possible, but you're right the multiple emitter in a single module would be better. That being said I think I may have proper solution should it come to that, and frankly I'm amazed we don't see this from the high end vendors yet. I can't find the source right now (have an e-mail at home) but it's a thin film that's matte on one side to gather and disperse light from multiple LED emitters, then on the other side the surface is made up of tiny lenses which then redirect all that diffused light at your choice of angles (anywhere from say 45-120deg optics). So what you end up with is essentially one large light source of uniform color temperature. You'll lose the nice glitter lines, but then the disco ball effect is also gone. Ultimately I beleive the multiple emitter on chip containing many colors will be the best long term solution, but until that is readily available (for cheap) I think this film is the answer in the DIY LED world. I was going to give it a shot on this project but the $50 sample fee put that on hold until my plan to maintain a calm water surface fails hahah. Will post when I find the source again.

Very cool! Let me know when you find that source again. I'll see if I can pull some strings using my university discount to get a sample for free/cheap.

Glad to hear you're grouping them tight together. Certainly validates my thinking. The evenly spaced LEDs never made a whole lot of sense to me.