does anyone know any lighting that you can buy ready built for a 10g or less that is available in the uk? not metal halide though, don't want to deal with heat issues.

im struggling to find one

What do you plan on putting in your tank?

LED! haha
i just made one today for a pico. color is amazing.
Rapid LED.com is a good all together kit. youll prob want 12leds over a 10g

thanks for the response,

probably lps and soft corals.

i am considering leds but im a little worried about the shimmer, i mentioned this on another thread but ive noticed the shimmer of an led is different to a metal halide. you can notice that the blue shimmers are seperate to white shimmers, so in effect u get patches of blue and patches of white flickering, in a halide its jus one colour.

dizzle do you find that in your new light?

when i noticed it at the lfs i found it a little distracting. so im still unsure, i need more input from people who have them?

Hi, I'm also based in the UK, and have a 5 gallon.

I bought an 18W 50/50 PC off of ebay, (although, maybe a 36W would be better, as you have twice the volume) for I think, ~£35. I have one sample of LPS (a torch coral) that has since split from 1 to 2 heads. I also have zoas, that have grown since purchase.

50/50 PC bulb

I did, however, find the colours of the zoas a little dull so I added a strip of water proof blue LED's, again off ebay (for ~£7), that was already wired up to a plug, and the colours of everything improved. (Although it'd be well worth double checking with the seller as to whether the strip comes with the plug, as a friend of mine ordered some and had to buy a transformer separately). These strips seem to cause different reactions from different people, and I never have measured the light output with a PAR meter, that said, I love it and beleive it has only improved my tank.

ebay blue LED strip

If you don't fancy putting together a custom LED build, based on my experience, then something similar to my set up would be more than suitable.

thanks!!,

do you have a thread for your led setup? i wanna take a look.

how are you liking the leds as compared to PC lighting?

and also if you don't mind me asking, roughly how much did it cost for the custom leds?

thanks in advance

Sorry for the late reply, and apologies, no build thread, but I'll take some pics and post them when I'm home.

I still have the PC light, and just use the blue LED's to supplement it, and as moon lights. The LED's aren't custom, they're just off the shelf, like the ones I linked in. Only cost about 7 quid, and the colour of my zoas went from a dull brown, to a really bright orange, again, will try and post some pics later.

Hey, here are those long-awaited pictures. Apologies for taking so long.

Here's the 50/50 PC, mentioned in a previous post. Unfortunately you cannot see the two different colours.Click to view attachment

And here's the cheap LED strip, again, mentioned in an above post, which is mounted to some egg crate using cable ties,Click to view attachment

the pictures are not visible

nano, what filter do you have

Try looking for some T5 fixtures, maybe like from the Arcadia or Giesemann brands.

and here's the LED's in place on the tank (you can actually see the PC light above the egg crate)
Click to view attachment



And, just for reference, here's a shot of the tank with just the LED's on (so, at night)
Click to view attachment



And a shot to show how the corals fluoresce under the moon lights. (Please excuse the in-not-great-shape GSP)
Click to view attachment

Sorry about the many posts, the pictures were too big for 1 post, and it seems I can't get the original links to work.

At least you get the idea anyway...

Oh, and to answer you filtration question, I have a Korilla nano power head and live rock primarily, and I have just a small internal filter which I have added additional compartments to, like an in-tank-fuge, with chaeto, filter floss, activated carbon and some RowaPhos.